


I'm not okay

by runaway_killjoy



Category: All Time Low, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe- Paranormal, Alternate Universe- Supernatural, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-27 18:52:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2702759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runaway_killjoy/pseuds/runaway_killjoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school being hell is a lot more realistic than you thought<br/>Gerard tries to survive his final year in high school but encounters with the not quite living make him think he might not have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

The car pulls up across the road from the iron gates into hell. My mom turns back from the front seat and fixes Mikey’s tie. “Okay,” she smiles, she still believes school is good for us, “Have fun!” Mikey’s expression lightens a fraction for her, mine doesn’t. Her brow furrows as she sends us off.

     “Um Gee,” Mikey says uncomfortably as the car drives away, leaving us exposed to the gates of prison, “do you mind if we walk in at the different times…? Just for today.”

     “Yea sure, you first,” I smile meekly.

     “Thanks Gerard,” he makes his way across the road and into the car park. He meets friends almost immediately. I took in my shirt and straighten my collar as disappears inside in a small laughter.

      Unlike my brother I don’t get greeted by a laughing group of comrades or even a smile. Head down, I bump my school bag higher on my back and begin my descent into the cold grey building of St. Mary’s high school. I can feel eyes on my back real or imaginary. I just strut on toward my locker. I see Mikey’s friend Jack smile at me and I smile back but the momentary distraction is prime opportunity to smash me into the lockers.

      Ah school, the lovely smell of blood trickling out of my nose.

     I finally reach my locker and slide my bag off my back. The laughter and chatter of everyone around me is pissing me off and it’s not even nine o’clock yet. _It’s your last year_ I tell myself over and over. _Only one more year._

“Hey Way Gay how was your summer?” Logan says slamming his shoulder into my locker, shutting it as I try to open it. The nickname has been getting gradually shorter since freshman year when it somehow escaped that I liked a guy in my class. This really ruined everything for me. I went from “Way’s too gay to live” to “Way too Gay to live” to “Way Gay to live” to now “Way Gay.” Of course there was some variations and misinterpretations in the time I’ve spent in school but those are the main ones,

     “Superb,” I say dramatically, trying to reopen my locker.

     “Aren’t you going to ask how mine was?” Logan says, reslamming my locker.

     “Of course, how was _your_ summer, Logan,” I spit.

     “Great, I fucked so many bitches,” he grins, “but that doesn’t make you jealous, does it. Anyway, get the fuck away from my locker.”

     “What?”

     “You heard me. This is my locker this year Way Gay. Get forth.”

     “Get forth?” I scoff. “This is my locker, Logan. It has been for the past three years.”

     “There’s a new kid and he’s been given mine so I’ve been given yours, now get the fuck out of here or do I have to bring you,” he flashes his teeth. Before he got braces there was a joke that “even Logan’s teeth are straighter than Gerard Way”. Haha life in a catholic private school haha.

     I’m not in the mood for conflict or anything so I pull my bag back on my back and walk away.

     The secretary is busy with freshmen so I am directed to a student busy at the filing cabinet. “Hello, er, Gerard?” he smiles, handing a new stack of printed schedules to the ambushed secretary. “I think your locker has been moved,” he says disappearing under the desk leaving only a glimpse of his mass of hair. “Ah, yes. Here you go. It says here your locker is on… yes number six hundred and sixty five. It’s um… oh it’s on the west wing of the school. You’re new combination is six, twelve, six. Here’s your schedule while you’re here and yep. See you around!”

     I nod and smile weakly as I skulk back into the crowded halls. It’s getting closer and closer to the first bell. I begin my journey to the wing of the school where the physics classrooms are. There are only two physics classes a day and I think I may be the only one with a locker over here. It might just be my schools way of showing they don’t like homosexuals either.

     I pass a group of cheerleaders who all stare me down. Especially Marjorie Wilcoxon. Last year the cheerleaders had a contest to see if any of them could turn me straight, so basically get me hard. Marjorie won four days into the contest by tying my shoe laces and resting her breasts on my knee. The concept of bisexuality is so bizarre to these people that they all believed I had turned straight and laughed about that for around a month.

     “Don’t stare at me that way,” Marjorie snarls. I wasn’t even looking at her.

      The halls gradually got emptier as I made my way to my new locker. I was right in thinking I’m the only one with a locker in this part of the school. I’m so far away from the classroom of my first class too.

     I notice in the reflection of the window as I slip off my backpack that there is a massive crucifix directly over my locker. Well played catholic school, well played.

     The first bell rings while I’m staring up at the carved piece of wood. “Fuck,” I say trying to put in my new code. I swing my locker open and, really randomly, a guy falls out.

     Literally, some short ass dude knocks me to the ground as he falls out of my locker. I lie on the linoleum, startled, as the guy jumps off me whispering a “fuck” of awe.

     I stare up at him from the floor. “Hi. Are you alive?”

     “A bit of an exaggeration,” I say, sitting up, “you just frightened me not fucking killed me.”

     His eyes widen, “right yea,” he extends his hand to me.

     “How did you get in there?” I ask, taking his hand. “Who are you, are you that new kid?”

     “Uh yea, I’m new, my name is Frank. Who’re you?” he says looking uncomfortable.

     “Gerard,” I shove some books into my locker, lessening the weight of my bag. The second bell rings. “Shit we should go to class,” I say. “Mine’s French.”

     “Ah yea mine is um, in here,” he says gesturing to a door at the end of the hall. That is a physics classroom.

     “Physics?” I begin walking backwards toward the main part of the school.

      “Um, yup. I just love my numbers…” I can’t tell if he’s joking, lying or deadly serious. I just nod and make my way to class.

 

I decide to eat my lunch in one of the physics rooms. They’re usually empty and they’re right beside my locker. I carry my tray of cafeteria food into the halls. My bowl of stew is precariously balanced in the middle of the tray and my sandwich is wrapped in plastic sliding side to side as walk. My bottle of water tucked under my arm, I try to disappear.

     “That doesn’t look well balanced,” fuck. I look to the left and see Logan and his friend Chase.

     “Don’t be a dick, Logan,” I hear a voice on my right. Alex, Mikey’s friend has turned around.

     I try walk on through, stepping over Logan’s extended foot but one swing of Chases arm sends my tray flying into my chest. The hot stew burns all the way down my shirt. The sandwich flies behind me and the cutlery clatters to the floor. The assholes leave in a crowd of laughter and Alex immediately drops down and picks up my dishes and things, “here,” he takes the tray from me. “I’ll take these back you clean yourself up.”

     I smile meekly at him and pick up my sandwich, making a b-line for the bathrooms in the west wing. I wash as much stew off my chest as I can and then stand awkwardly underneath the hand dryer for ten minutes.

     The Frank kid is sitting in the physics room when I get there, staring at his own hands. “Uh sorry,” I say and turn back toward the door.

     “No wait!” he says jumping off the table by the wall. “Um, you can eat here if you want.”

      “I was just going to uh eat and draw.” I shift the sketch pad under my arm.

     “Cool!” he says enthusiastically. I nod slowly and sit down in the back corner. I open my sandwich and sketchpad.

     What happened to your shirt?” Frank asks, twisted around on his desk and looking down at me.

     “Uh… some assholes spilled my food on me,” I explain before biting into my sandwich.

     Frank nods slowly. “People aren’t very nice here, are they?”

     “No, not really. Some are okay but most are fucking assholes.” I look down and start sketching. I was working on comic book characters for my new comic.

     “Whatcha drawing,” Frank asks, he’s closer now. Like he’s now sitting on the desk just in front of mine but I never heard him move.

     “Just some characters,” I say, finishing my sandwich.

     “Can I see?”

     I lift up my sketchpad and his eyes widen. “They’re very very good,” he smiles. I murmur a thanks and go back to drawing.

     After a few minutes he speaks again, “could you tell me something about the school?”

     I sigh. I just want to fucking draw, but this guy seems nice enough and I don’t want to scare off everyone. “Yea. Uh, it’s catholic. All the teachers are okay in quality but they’re almost all homophobic and strict on dress code. Um, the cafeteria food has improved. That’s it really.”

     “And how many years has it been open?” he says, his eyes twinkling.

     “Uh twenty five this year,” I say, confused at the relevance.

     “Twenty five,” he repeats in awe.

     “Okay… I should go get my stuff for my last few classes…” I stand up. He nods enthusiastically and twists around on the desk, watching me until I leave.

     Art is my last class, the only class I can fucking tolerate in this school, only because there’s no one in it that hates my guts. That and I actually enjoy drawing.

     I sit beside the only other guy in the class. He spent the entirety of last year drawing Minecraft themed drawings. Yes he spent junior year art drawing boxes.

     We all encircle a bowl of fruit and commence sketching. I haven’t had a single class with new guy Frank. I concede that h isn’t in my year and will probably end up being yet another one of Mikey’s friends. I’m not jealous of my brother… not really.

     If I’m jealous of anyone it’s of his friends Jack and Alex. They’re openly in a relationship yet everyone likes them. They’re nice and funny and everyone’s friend unlike me. I’m that weird senior kid who no one wants to sit beside in case he spreads his gayness like a disease. Sometimes I think if I stopped wearing eyeliner or iron maiden shirts to PE or didn’t draw all the time people would like me better. Oh well.

     I’m wrecked tired upon returning to my locker. It isn’t even fucking September yet and I’m bruised and tired and contemplating what my life would be like if I ran away to work in a gay bar. Probably a lot better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yea i started a new one :)) i wanted to write this story since i thought it up so i might as well start it now. Let me know what you think and I'll see if i should keep writing it :3


	2. Two

School persists. I guess it always does.

     The assholes, they persist too. I guess they always do too.

     I’m late for school on Thursday and have to run to my locker to get my French books. Frank is just standing, staring out the window when I get there, “Late?” he asks as I throw open my locker.

     “Really fucking late,” I say pulling out a text book and copy, “you will be too, you should go to class.”

     I turn my back and run toward the classroom. The final bell rings as I skirt around the corner and fall against the closing door. I thought the door was closed and all my weight was to aid my opening of it. Unfortunately it wasn’t and I end up falling in the door, the weight of my bag knocking me right onto the floor. The smack of my head on linoleum stings like a bitch. Almost everyone is seated when I look up, and all of them are staring at me.

     “That was a beautiful entrance, Mr. Way. Please stand and take your seat,” my teacher says from his desk.

     I nod and pick myself up, only to trudge over and sit in the very front. I can literally feel how red my face and neck are and the silent taunts are really only feeding the flush. “What was that Way Gay”, “don’t hump the floor”, etc.

     French class passes in a flurry of “Oui oui oui” and “je ne sais pas”. Yes that is the extent of my French, at least I can say I don’t know. My teacher reprimands me for doodling all over my note book. At least I managed to cover the elaborate drawing I did on a spare sheet that just happens to look like Frank’s face surrounded in stars and swirls.

     When class is over I shove the page into my pocket and walk quickly to the door, I need to get some books before the next class. Just as I make it out into the corridor, a leg comes out of nowhere and I go sprawling across the ground, again. Someone steps on my hand, probably by accident, and someone else kicks me in the ribs. I curl up and try and rise when I feel the page being pulled from my back pocket.

     “What’s this then,” says Tyson, a friend of Chase and Logan, uncrumpling the page. His eyebrows rise and he begins to grin. “This your boyfriend then Way Gay? Do you take French so you can serenade him is it?” he laughs. I stand up and walk away towards my lockers, leaving the taunts and jeers of everyone who must now believe I have a boyfriend. Fab.

     I get my books and am late to math anyway, I don’t really care. My teacher says nothing just stares at me until I sit down. She explains an equation quickly and then gives us five others to do while she goes out to photocopy our homework. The second she leaves the room everyone begins to talk to their friends. I hear rumours behind me about some sophomore called Jessica who got pregnant and then an abortion. It’s likely that that’s bullshit. I can also hear someone talking about “that junior gay couple”. I don’t get it, I’ve never actually had a boyfriend and everyone hates my “gayness” but Mikey’s friends Jack and Alex are openly gay and everyone loves them. I don’t want people to not like them, just maybe not be so hypocritical. It’s probably just because they’re not total emo losers.

     “Yo, Way,” a whisper comes from my left. I look over. “Can I borrow your eraser?”

     “Yea sure,” I hand the guy, Bob, my eraser and he nods in thanks. I am quite fond of this guy Bob. I wouldn’t call him my friend, just one of the few people who ever stuck up for me. Last year chase was kicking the shit out of me and Bob pulled him away, punched him in the face and told him not to be “a fucking cunt”. Chase has only ever tried to beat me up on days Bob is not in school.

     I manage to get passed three notes before the teacher returns. One is the drawing I did with dicks drawn all over it, nice. Two are just people simply asking “If I have a boyf yet” and if they need to “help me fuck him”. I hold the notes up in the air and announce, “That is not very catholic of you.” The teacher comes in before I get a response.

     I’m one of the first in line at the canteen, thankfully, and manage to escape without my meatloaf decorating my shirt.

     On my way toward the door Mikey flags me down. “Hi?”

     “Want to eat with us?” he offers, gesturing to the seat beside Jack. I smile and nod. The sooner I eat the less chance of me wearing my food.

    “Don’t think I’m rude,” Jack says to me before bending down to pick up a fry with his teeth. Alex next to him laughs and tries to bite it. I look down and pick at my own chips. “Alex,” jack shrieks. I look up and see Jack trying to eat all Alex’s chips at once as Alex lies across him to eat his.

     Jack arches his back and Alex coughs as his side catches him in the throat. Alex drops his weight and the two boys end up falling to the ground. Mikey rolls his eyes, grinning. Rian and Zack are smiling down at them too, Rian showing off his straight white teeth. He had braces until like yesterday and now his teeth could blind you.

     I finish my lunch and make my way towards the physics rooms. I never asked Frank how he got in my locker that first day.

     Thursdays is when the halls are at their safest. The football team and the cheerleaders are practising so I can usually make it around without adding to my collection of bruises.

     “Hi!” Frank chirps as I walk into the physics room. “How was your day so far?”

     I sigh and drop onto a desk, “I got floored trying to enter and leave my first class.”

     He winces, “ouch, are you okay?”

     I nod. “No you’re not, you’re covered in bruises.”

     I sigh. Yes I am covered in bruises but my bruises are covered in clothes. “They’re not even sore anymore, I’m used to their pain.”

     He sighs, “That’s not a good thing. Can I see your shoulder?”

     Ah my shoulder, the part of my body often rammed into a locker. “Uh I’m wearing a shirt, and blazer,” I point out.

     “Take ‘em off,” he shrugs.

     I laugh at him, “Want me to do a fucking strip tease,” I scoff. Frank’s blushing at this makes me go red too. _Way to go Way and make everyone uncomfortable. No one wants to see you attempt a strip tease._ I pull off my blazer looking at the ground and unbutton the top buttons. I shrug out my shoulder and leave the bare skin exposed in all its green and purple glory.

     “Fuck,” Frank murmurs getting a closer look. “Ha, same locker patterns there,” he runs a cold thumb lightly over the tip of my shoulder, “as I had-have.”

     I rub my shoulder roughly so my skin won’t tingle under his touch, “Yea douche bags are all into patterns,” I grumble, pulling my shirt back up.

     He sits back slowly onto the desk beside me. Neither of us speak for a moment but it’s not awkward. Frank picks up his tie and swings it around his neck, humming. After about four circuits he stops and looks at me, “Are we friends Gerard?”

     I look up at him taken aback. “I dunno are we?”

     “I don’t have friends so I don’t fucking know,” he says crossing his legs.

     “Well me neither,” I shift positions uncomfortably. It’s not that I don’t want to be his friend he’s just so… so… weird. His mannerisms are like those of a kid off the nineties TV shows that make you cringe. “Want to be friends,” I find myself saying with a dumb smile.

     His face lights up, “Totally! Whatever friendship is let this be it!”

 

Frank isn’t in Mikey’s year. Mikey asked his sophomore friends and they say their new student is a girl called Andrea and there’s no way that Frank is a freshman. I resolve he must be a senior only not in any of my classes. The only classrooms I ever see him near are the physics ones so maybe he’s a returning student just looking to do physics. I always mean to ask him these questions but I never remember to when we’re together. My brain just kind of melts away any time I’m around him. Not in a gay way… well maybe in a gay way.

     I’m late leaving school on Wednesday. This was a very bad mistake. As great an honour as it is to have my art teacher hold me back and ask if he can display my work for the schools “open night”. That same day I had made the mistake of looking down Miranda, Logan’s girlfriends top. I also walked backwards into a trashcan and I fell in gym. This is all a great mixture of humiliation that assholes like Logan feed on.

     I’m walking through the almost empty parking lot alone. I can see Frank still in the window smiling and waving. What a dork.

     I walk quickly through the labyrinth of nice cars the rich kids dads got them for some birthday. “Gay Way!” someone calls behind me. I twist my head around, still walking forward at a fast pace. Logan is walking behind me. When I look forward again it’s too late to stop myself and I walk straight into a rear view mirror.

     “Oh my god you fucking cunt!” he screeches as I try to recover from the fucking car I just hit. “You hurt my car!”

     “Excuse me?! Your car just fucking hit me!” And those were words I immediately regretted as Logan’s fist collided with my jaw. I knock over immediately into a neighbouring car, sliding down along it till I hit the floor. My vision returns to normal just to see an expensive Nike sneaker swing full force into my stomach. I lie winded on the ground, seeing stars. The car I ran into opens, engine starts, and it’s gone. After about five minutes and I can see again I try leaver myself off the floor. My head hurts and my ribs hurt and I just want to leave. Leave forever.

    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today was such a weird day for me holy shit. i didn't have school because my teachers are on strike so i just randomly woke up at half nine and then fell asleep in different parts of the house while listening to the Academy is... and All American Rejects. It just felt so odd, random days off are the best  
> Thank you for reading and I'll update soon :33


	3. Three

It’s really beginning to weird me out how I never find frank anywhere. The only place I ever spot him is around my locker. Maybe I imagined him, god knows I’m fucked up enough.

     I spend lunch with him again today. We were just talking about how we both hate math and somehow the conversation turned to the shitheads who beat the shit out of me regularly. “It’s not that bad,” I lie. “they barely make a scratch anymore.”

     Frank rolls his eyes in a concerned way. I never thought one could roll their eyes concernedly but then I guess Frank isn’t really a lover of convention. “Gee,” he sighs. I wave it off but he continues, “I saw that guy attack you in the car park last week.”

      I redden. “I’m sorry I didn’t come and help…”

     “It’s fine,” I say stiffly.

     “No it isn’t,” he says shakily, “no it fucking isn’t. I’m so sorry. You need to get them to stop. This can’t be good for you.”

     “Of course it’s not good for me!” I blurt. “I’m covered in bruises and last week I broke a rib. It costs a lot to get that fucking seen to.”

     “I’m not talking about physically. Or financially. You know what I mean.”

     _Mentally._ “I’m okay. I promise.”

     The bell rings and I stand up abruptly, “I’m going to be late for class.”

     I run out the door to the sound of Frank calling after me. I know he just wants to help but maybe I don’t want to be helped. Definitely not by someone that for all I know isn’t real.

     I take out my sketch book when I get home. I have homework enough to sink a ship but I don’t care anymore. September isn’t even over yet and I already don’t give a fuck about school anymore. _You’re the best student in the school, Gerard. Thank god you have a brother like Mikey who has some friends and gets some good grades to make sure everyone can see how much you suck._

I start sketching a half skeleton half normal person. But they’re not like a corpse. They’re a musician. A guitarist maybe, who plays shoes and skateboards, because that shit’s cool. He definitely isn’t hated by everyone in his school and he definitely doesn’t have a crush on someone that might not even exist, because that shit’s not cool.

 

I decide to skip Math to hang out with Frank in the empty physics room. We had a test and I think I’m better off not taking it and getting in trouble for skipping class rather than for failing another test. Frank and I welcome October by smoking in a class room while reflecting on our most embarrassing experiences.

     “For me it has to be when I tried to ask a guy out,” I laugh. “It backfired so badly. Literally, I asked one guy out and suddenly I’m the only gay guy to ever walk the earth.

     “Maybe not to walk the earth, just the halls of a seriously catholic school,” Frank laughs. “Even then you couldn’t be the only one.”  
      “Yea, I’m not. I’m just the only _bi_ student worth beating the shit out of.”

      Frank purses his lips and nodded. “I was beat up for not being the straightest needle in the sewing box. I really could pick them, I had a stupid crush on the leader of the guys who throw me around. It’s not my fucking fault, I can’t help who I like.”

     My heartbeat speeds up at the thought of Frank “not being the straightest needle”

     I shift my seating and put out my cigarette. I wonder if I’ll get caught for this.

     “My most embarrassing memory… Probably trying out for the school choir,” he takes a last drag before putting his out.

     “Did you not get in?” I ask. For some reason I always thought Frank would be a good singer. Maybe I didn’t imagine him if all his characteristics aren’t as I would have made him.

     “No I did,” _oh_ “I was the only junior, first of all. Secondly, I was the only boy.” I laugh at this, “It’s true. And to top it off I got a solo singing in Latin about Jesus while I had this scorpion tattoo.” I watch him run his fingers over the tattoo on his neck and cross my legs.

     “Afterwards I got beat up by these lads and the cut the words “choir fag” into my arm… that was much less embarrassing and much more horrible.”

     I gasp. I was pretty sure Frank was bullied but that’s fucking far. I tell him as much.

    “Yea. They always just keep getting worse and worse. That’s the thing about life, everything gets worse and then worse and worse. Even if you don’t think it could. It does.” I stare at him wide eyed. “Don’t worry I’m not going to kill myself again.”

     Before I can even ask him what it means he’s changed the subject by asking for another cigarette.

 

I get my lunch and walk into the corridor, determined to get to the physics rooms before someone spills my stew on me.

     Turning the corner I almost wish they did. Instead I charge straight into Miranda, spilling my stew right down her designer white blouse. Her gasp turns into a scream as she slaps me across the face. “Watch out you asshole!”

     Logan who was holding her hand dropped it and formed a fist instead. He uses his other hand to shove me full force into the lockers. My try clatters somewhere on the ground. My vision blurs completely and I am in a state of total confusion as I rise from the floor again. My vision always seems to return right in time to see the next blow but not in time to do anything about it. I watch as Logan’s hand that isn’t holding me above the ground swings in and punches me in the stomach.

     “Enough!” a voice demands and I’m dropped to the floor again. “Get the principal’s office right this second.” I don’t recognise the voice but I see Logan gulp before my vision blurs out again.

     “Fuck, Gerard?” A familiar voice says from somewhere behind me. I realise if I open my eyes I could probably see those that are speaking but honestly, climbing Everest seems easier right now.

     “Do you know this boy?” the strange voice says. Silence. “Do you think you can carry him?” Silence.

      My curiosity is eased when I’m lifted bridal style from the floor. “Take him to the nurse’s. I’ll be there as soon as I deal with the other boy,” we begin to mover. “You there,” he says behind me, “nevermind your shirt. Clean up this mess now.”

     I think I pass out or something on the journey because it doesn’t feel like long until my eyes open in the nurse’s office and I’ve traded muscular arms to padded linoleum. Sitting by the door is Mikey’s friend Zack, who probably brought me here. Beside him is the school guidance councillor, probably owner of the voice.

     The nurse enters my square of vision and begins asking me a series of degrading questions such as, “is it sore where he punched you”. I’m pretty fucking sure that’s exactly where it should be sore.

      After a while the nurse gives me some pain killers and says I should wait in her office till my mom comes but not fall asleep because I may have a mild concussion.

     Whatever a concussion is supposed to feel like this is not mild. I don’t even realise that lunch ended half an hour ago and at some point Zack left.

     The guidance councillor walks over and extends his hand to me. I stare at it for some time before actually thinking straight and shake it. “May I sit?” he gestures to the chair by the bed.

     “Sure?” I say sitting up straight. I didn’t notice slipping down to horizontal.

     “This isn’t the first time this has happened is it?” he asks.

     “Nope. It’s okay.”

     “No it’s not,” he says, kinda shocked, “Let me introduce myself. My name is Mr. Corgan, you can call my Billy if you wish. I’m the school councillor and I think you should start seeing me Gerard. I’m very worried about you.”

     “I don’t know who you are. If you want it to be better stop the schools homophobic outlook on life,” I growl. Mr Corgan sits upright.

     “Sorry,” I mutter.

     “These boys they’re bullies aren’t they,” he says.

     “Well, yea.”

     “And they make you angry, not sad?”

     “Both kinda.”

     “Kinda?”

     “Like it angers me that they’re assholes. It’s sad that everyone supports them.”  
     “Not everyone.”

     “Well obviously but I can generalise can’t I? I am American.”

     He purses his lips at me and I raise an eyebrow. “What?”

     “Interesting thing to say is all.”

     “I guess?” What the fuck is that supposed to mean…

     “And how does it make you feel. Do you think they’re attacking you based on your sexuality or on your personality?”

     “Both.”

     “And does it make you want to change it?”

     “No. It makes me want it to be more extreme to get back at them,” this was obviously not the reply he had anticipated.

     “Oh,” he manages to say.

     The door opens and my mom rushes in with the nurse relaying instructions. She rushes over and hugs me, an act which inflicts a shit ton of pain. I make a noise and she immediately lets go. “Mrs Way, I think it would be best your son sees me twice a week now, with your permission. I’m the school’s guidance councillor.”

     My mom looks shocked at the thought that I may need help. “Oh… Yes, yes okay.”

     And with that we walk slowly down to the car. I see Frank staring out the window of the west wing as we drive away. Even from this distance he looks quite heartbroken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. The past two nights I've been home late and then had to do an unrealistic amount of math work. (Its a project and i forgot it was due today... whoops)  
> So for those who don't know Billy Corgan is the lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins and i always found music to by my therapy so i've made it lamely literal. Thanks for reading!


	4. Four

I don’t like therapy. I guess it would help if I wanted it to. It’s coming to the end of the first week in October and every session I’ve been to is a series of metaphors and me answering honestly even though he doesn’t believe me.

     “Gerard, this only works if we’re both honest,” Mr. Corgan says, for like the hundredth time.

    “I’m fucking serious, I don’t care about the physical bruising,” I sigh sinking into my chair. I should be with Frank right now.

     “How could one “not care” about being black and blue all over Gerard?”

     “Because the bruises are just a reminder.”

     “A reminder of what?”

     “Of the fact that I’m a gay loser who nobody likes.”

     “And you like that?”

     “I never said that I liked it. I just said that I don’t care about the bruises. They’re just there. They’re just like my skin now.”

 

Frank is always in the physics room waiting for me after my forty minute counselling sessions. It’s only supposed to be a half hour but I usually exasperate him so much that he continues the session until we “get somewhere” which we never do. All we’ve really managed to establish is that I hate everyone especially myself.

     That last part seems to seriously worry the school councillor. Like he honestly thinks I will kill myself so I keep lying in that point saying things like “That would just let them win”.

     “How’d it go?” Frank asks the second I walk in the door.

     “Okay,” I mumble.

     He slides himself directly in front of me when I sit down. “Gerard,” I accidentally lock eyes with him, “how’re you today.”

     “Not as dead as I wish.”

     “You do not wish to be dead,” he sits beside me and pats my thigh. It takes every thinkable image of naked old ladies and guys screwing dogs not to get it up. “Being dead would probably be boring.”

     “What do you mean?” I grimace, thinking of naked old people humping.

     “I mean, what would you do all day, other than wait to talk to people… Like you can’t sleep anymore. One of the best things about living. And you can’t eat, or drink. Literally the pleasures in life leave with life. And if you die hungry you have to spend eternity basically starving. Even worse if you die needing to pee. Unless you do deals with faith, then you have to do some weird ass task to end eternal suffering. And there’s no music, only singing because there are no instruments unless you’re holding it in your final seconds your spirit can’t bring it along.” I stare at him. “And then there’s the horrible possibility of getting stuck on your way out, y’know. There is nothing cool or fun about haunting. At first you might think oh yea great you get music and shit but you have no social interaction. You get to spend your own little eternity trying to catch peoples attention because oh man you have no idea how weird it is not speaking to anyone for months. That’s why those ones go crazy and like try to kill people, so that maybe they will get caught on the way out and they’ll have company. And that shit about Ouija boards… Every time some kids think it would be cool to try all the surrounding spirits are sucked together for a possible communication, and you get all your hopes up, and then someone else gets it and it’s like all the spirits go on pause. And you think at first “Oh yea everyone dead is here, and you go off looking for your idols but you will basically never find them. The other side has you categorised into massive spaces where everyone who died in a certain area go. So instead of making friends with the Ramones as you hope, you end up being stuck with people who died hundreds of years ago which is not as cool as it sounds.”

    I continue to stare at him when he’s finished. He looks flustered and sad. “That’s my opinion anyway.”

     “It’s a really good theory,” I admit slowly. “It’s a fucking well thought out theory.”

     “Yea well, death always interested me.”

     “Yea. Same.”

     “Can we listen to music now?” he looks anxious next to me. His eyes dart from mine to the ornate crucifix hanging above the teacher’s desk.

     “Sure, yours or mine?” I ask lying in an awkward position to try and get my phone out of my pocket.

     “Yours,” he says, “I don’t have my… phone.”

     “Do you ever,” I sigh, finally pulling my phone free, “Lets listen to Bowie.”

     “But Bowie is so… Can we not listen to something new?”

     “Like what,” I scroll through the songs.

     “That one about guys falling.”

     “Fall Out Boy?”

     “Yea.”

     “They’re not new.”

     “Newer than Bowie.” And with that I search through my phone for some fall out boy.

 

The crucifix above my locker stares at me as I get my books. I just want to go home now.

     Frank is yapping away cheerfully about something that happened in 1993. I nod and as I shove books away.

     “How do you even know all this?” I ask slamming my locker shut.

     He winces at the noise, “I’m just interested is all.”

     “The nineties were boring as fuck,” I say pulling my school bag on my back, “no offense. You walking out?”

      As usual he shakes his head.

     Just as I turn the corner into the main hall I feel myself being sandwiched between two guys. “What the fuck,” I say. To my left Jack is grabbing my hand and Alex is doing the same to my right. “Guys… What?”

     “We have been tasked with keeping your ass safe!” Alex says and does a mock salute. “We’re going out to visit Mikey anyway so Zack asked us to keep you in one piece.”  
     “It is our pleasure,” Jack grins and begins swinging our arms.

     Everyone smiles, fucking _smiles,_ at the unbelievable trio of gayness as Jack and Alex skip through the car park, pulling me along awkwardly. They never let go of my hands, even when we stop at a car for them to talk to Rian and his girlfriend. Or when they dart around the corner and make out for a minute.

     That made me so uncomfortable you wouldn’t believe.

     They hold my hands all the way home, chattering giddily about music, specifically Blink-182, and thing that happened in class.

      “No, no this one’s pretty fucking funny. Right so I was in geography and we were learning about rocks and whatever and then this one girl in the front of the class started asking some really stupid questions. So after like four in a row I get really fucking sick of it. So she goes “but why does that make them so hard” and before the teacher answers I jump up and say, “Don’t judge other’s fetishes”,” Jack grins.

     Alex bursts out laughing. I grin too and we turn a corner onto one of the richer neighbourhoods, where we live. We’re not _that_ rich really, we just got a house in a will and a scholarship to the private school because of our “strong catholic faith” and apparently my art. I never really believed that to be as relevant to the decision as the large cash donation to the church my granny made when she died.

     The boys let go of my hands at the gate. Alex stops his tale about some moon on some planet to announce, “Mission success!” to Jack. They high five and the three of us walk in to my house together. We all get something to eat in the kitchen first. Mikey, who has been sick all week, is delighted to see his friends and even happier when he finds out they guarded my journey. After a while I leave Mikey to have his friends alone and go up to my room to draw a picture of a guy on the moon for Alex.

 

Alex expressed his gratitude when I showed him before they left by staring at the page, squeaking a bit and then sitting down on the doormat to stare some more. It’s a pretty rough and awkward sketch. To be honest I wasn’t even going to give it to him it was so bad but he seems to love it anyway.

     I finish my homework and then go into Mikey’s room to hear him practising the bass. He’s getting better. Especially in the past week when he has had all day to practise.

     Sleep comes to me remarkably quickly and I dream about haunting Frank. Everything he told me about his theory today was real and I had to spend my own eternity trying to get Frank to notice me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is taking me irrationally long to write, I'm so sorry. This chapter is incredibly short (for me) and it took what, four days? I'm very sorry i hope y'all haven't lost interest! Anyway the next chapter is the first unveiling of the plot so if you can remain interested until then, i'll try write it as quick as i can. Thanks for reading :*


	5. Five

Monday I’m a total mess. The day starts badly immediately. Mikey and his friends all go off on some field trip to look at a monument or something I never knew existed. I walked into the school gates and before I could even adjust the bag on my back Logan and Chase drove up right behind me, I had to jump to the right, into a wall, to avoid getting hit. The two boys laugh in the car.   
I walk as fast as I can but the baseball players manage to run faster even though I got the head start. They slam the front door as I try to open it. “Where are your gay knights?” Chase grins in my ear.   
“The protectors of the Gay are gays,” Logan laughed as if he just made a funny joke or clever remark. I push against the door yet again it was slammed closed.   
“Are you in a relationship together,” Chase growls, “is that it? A three way buttsex party. Sinners. No wonder they’re the only people who will be seen with you.”  
“I’m not gay,” a gruff voice says from behind, “but I want to get into the school but there seems to be a pair of fuckbrains in my way.” I turn around to see Bob Bryar standing behind this. He’s not as tall as Chase or as buff as Logan but his voice seems to knock the two boys into submission. They both stand out of his way. I open the door and scurry in.  
“Don’t let them talk to you like that,” he mumbles to me. Then louder, “I swear if I catch you two trying to be dickheads to someone like this again I’ll shove you both up each other’s assholes so far you’ll wish you were fucking gay.” And without that my new fucking hero, Bob, walks away.  
Chase and Logan leave me alone for the rest of the morning, at least, but they’re not the only people who aren’t my biggest fans. For example, French class. The first class of the day and the teacher says “pair up” for oral work. Who in the class would ever want to do anything oral related with the sinning homosexual in the corner. No one offers to be my partner so the teacher ends up pairing me with Miranda.  
“Bonjour,” I say as she sits down angrily opposite me. She nods. “We’re supposed to talk about our interests… Comment… est ce-que tu…” I try to think of the way to begin my question. If it’s not already obvious, French isn’t my forte.  
To be honest, school isn’t my forte.  
Miranda rolls her eyes and sits up straight. “J’ai beaucoup de passe-temps,” she begins in a rich, practised French accent. “J’adore la mode.” And with that I completely lose track of everything she’s saying as she relays her long stories about fashion week in Paris.  
She doesn’t stop speaking until the teacher silences the room. “Okay, silence! Now. I’m going to ask you to tell the class what your partner told you. Okay… first may we have Gerard and Miranda please? Miranda what are Gerard’s pass-times?”  
Shit. “I’m unsure, Madame, Gerard point-blanche refused to co-operate. He never said two words to me,” Miranda makes a hurt expression.  
“You didn’t give me a chance to speak!” I protest and the teacher shoots me a daring look.  
“Okay, if Miranda spoke so much why don’t you tell us about Miranda’s interests?”  
Shit. “Um,” I clear my throat. “Miranda has a great interest in fashion.”  
“That’s it?”  
“That’s not even what I said!” Miranda frowns, “I never even mentioned fashion.”  
“Yes you did! You didn’t shut up about le mode being your amore! You even mentioned fashion week in Paris!”  
“I said I had an interest in Geography and travel! You’re just making things up because you didn’t listen to me!”  
I can protest no more because the teacher stands up and calls for silence. I hadn’t noticed people talking. Something in their glare told me they don’t believe me. “See me after class Gerard.”

I lose my lunch Money to Chase on my way into the canteen. I’m literally two steps in the main door, fiddling in my pockets for my money. “Don’t scratch your balls in public,” was the only warning before a punch landed me on the floor beside a chair. Disorientated, I look helplessly upward. In tables around the cafeteria I see students eating, and some praying before they eat. All see me on the ground but just carry about whatever they’re doing as Chase crouches next to me and asks for my money. Nobody cares. It’s just sick how they can sit by and fucking watch as I hand up my money. Maybe if I left forever the only noticeable thing would be the decline in Chase’s weekly expenditure.   
I pull myself to my feet and leave the canteen. I don’t really mind being hungry.   
In the halls people make random remarks at me as I pass. I attempt not listening to them. Anytime I raise my gaze to try and see who said it my eyes are met by dozens of staring and condemning pairs. I guess no one person is responsible.   
I slink off as quietly as I can.   
Therapy isn’t exactly what I’m up for so I dodge Mr. Corgan’s corridor and walk straight to the physics rooms. Inside the usual one Frank is reading a newspaper.  
“Hi Gee! Did you know this was happening?” he said pointing to an article about the troops being sent to Iraq, months ago.  
“Frank, do you live under a fucking rock,” I growl.  
“I can’t talk about the specifics,” he says.  
“What is that supposed to fucking mean,” I say, not ask, sitting down on a desk. Frank looks up at me with big puppy eyes, seemingly actually hurt.   
“What happened, Gee?” Frank asks softly, abandoning his old newspaper.   
“Nothing,” I say, dramatically lying down across two pushed together desks. “I just hate life.”  
“Why?”  
“Because everyone sucks and I suck and school sucks,” I sigh, “and no one will ever suck me.” I didn’t expect to say that.   
When I look up Frank is standing inches from my face. “Why are you here constantly Frank? Are you insane, or is it me?”  
“I think we’re both insane, Gerard.” I sit up and let him sit down next to me.   
“Are you real?” I ask stupidly.  
“I guess?” He looks down at his crossed legs, “I mean I feel pretty solid right now.”  
“Right now?”  
“I can be a great deal less solid. Look,” he touches my hand and slowly he begins to feel… weird. Like he’s half hologram. I shiver. That’s it, I’m definitely insane.  
“I’m fucking crazy!” I exclaim and burry my face in my palms. “Why… why is there so much fucking wrong with me?”  
Frank placed a solid, comforting hand on my shoulder. I didn’t realise I was shaking. Today is just a bad day. One more, bad day.  
“It doesn’t have to be a bad day…” Frank says. I hadn’t realised I said it out loud. “If I tell you something now, will you keep calm.”  
“I can’t make any promises,” I say shakily.  
“I’m dead.”  
I stare at him. What else could I fucking do, that was such a weird thing to say. I tell him as much. “Yea,” he allows, “It is a pretty weird thing, but it’s true.”  
“How? You’re here.”  
“Remember the first day we met I fell out your locker.”

It took me a while of asking questions and bringing air back into my body before I agreed to let Frank prove his deadness. This is fucking crazy.   
We both stand before my locker and the large crucifix above it.   
“I’ll show you,” Frank says as he unlocks my locker. My coat is hanging inside it and he pushes it to the very edge. He then makes the symbol of the cross on the back of the locker and suddenly it just falls away.   
“Wait,” I say before climbs inside, “the cross, does that mean Catholicism is… real?”  
“Eh, not quite… The cross isn’t really… it’s not the crucifix like, it’s hard to explain. The cross is really a key and the Christians use it…wrong?”  
“Oh,” I say, pretending that makes sense.  
Frank smiles, meekly and takes my hand. I watch him disappear into the pitch black space. My arm follows and then my body.   
We fall. A scream is caught in the back of my throat but it’s silenced by Frank who grabs my other hand and pulls me closer. He kisses me for a split second before pulling us apart. I can’t explain our landing. It’s as if we were never moving at all. And when we stand we don’t really stand. And when my vision adjusts it happens so gradually and fast that I never notice it does. I blink.  
“Are you okay?” Frank asks me.   
I nod. “I think I’m going to be sick.”  
There are roots of a massive tree right above us. All around us is orange rippled with black. Above us beside us and bellow us. It’s like there is no up or down. I guess there isn’t. I kneel down and touch the ground. It has the same vague solidarity as Frank’s hand had.  
There are people all around us when I look up. Like a crowded market appeared when my eyes were averted. Frank notices me staring at a group of women in their sixties dressed like the women from those cowboy movies. “Everyone who died within a fifty mile radius of your locker in the past few hundred years is here. I don’t know the exact count but I think this level is nearly full. Would you like to go for a walk?”  
We begin moving through the throngs of people. I’m getting so many weird looks. Probably because I’m solid. Or maybe it’s because I’m breathing. Or the fact that I’m constantly blushing under inquisitive stares.   
If everyone here is dead then it’s upsetting how young a lot of people are.   
“What age were you Frank?” I ask as we enter a slightly emptier patch. There’s a weird serene feeling and the less people there are, the more trees. Yew trees literally everywhere ahead.   
The home of the dead is weird. “Eh, eighteen.” He looks uncomfortable. “We probably shouldn’t keep you here too long. You have, like, a body, that’s why everyone was staring. Anyway a body isn’t meant to be here. You can tell by the trees.”  
I look at the trees who seem to be breathing. Well that’s disturbing. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be able to tell. “How did you d-” Frank cuts me off by kissing me. We fall onto the ground gently. If you could even call it that.   
A silent, eerily calm few minutes pass as we lie between yew trees.   
“We should start back,” Frank says after a while, helping me to my feet. I turn to walk back the way we came but Frank keeps forward. When we start to speak again it’s about really normal topics, considering we’re in the land of the dead.  
“I took home ec for a while in middle school,” Frank says. “I learned to make a really good lasagne but that was about it.”  
“What else do you need to know in life,” I smirk. “I can make coffee and toast and that’s it.”  
“I wish I could make you lasagne then,” Frank smiles. We keep walking for a while.   
The yew trees begin to thin out and the throngs of people begin, “Frank,” I say looking upward, “is that the tree that was above us when we got here?”   
He nods. When we make our way through the people to stand bellow the tree. “Jump on the count of three,” he grabs my hand, “one, two, three.”

The school is dead quiet. It felt like I was down in the world of the dead for maybe a half an hour, forty-five minutes at most. Not three hours. When we jumped Frank murmured various things before making the sign of a cross. We went from a feeling of being suspended in mid-air to one of being sucked forward.   
We hurtled forward from orange to black to unbelievable white.  
And that was it, we brushed over my books and past my coat directly into the metal of my locker door. Frank lands with practiced grace and I fall.   
I get my books, talking pleasantly with Frank as if we had not just made out surrounded by souls. Only as I leave the school do I realise what just happened. I am really fucking out of my mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was sick today that's why I actually got this written. Yesterday I had my school Christmas concert. My throat is sore and after seeing all the talent in my school is just insane. I mean seriously there are two rock duos in second year (age like 13/14) and they're insanely good. Then first years... Oh god I'm so talentless XD  
> My teacher also made my class perform Coldplay so i had to sing and play the bells. The Bells. Anyway here is le chapter and i hope you enjoy this. It's a little weird. And yea..  
> I'll update soon (as I can)!


	6. Six

I walk to school with Mikey the next morning. It’s beginning to get very cold daily now. It was never particularly warm at this hour in the morning but now it’s full on freeze-your-balls-off cold. And it’s not even fully bright yet.

     We begin to walk across the pedestrian crossing, assuming that the car will stop because that’s the fucking law. Of course that law excuses you if you find it hilarious to nearly drive over someone you don’t like.

We end up having to jump awkwardly out of the way as Chase and Logan as they play their new favourite game “run over the emo”. Ignoring them we continue in to the school.

     We make our way into the main hall. Mikey spots his friend Rian pretty quick and I’m left to wade my way toward my locker.

      “Hi Gerard!” two voices come up behind me. Jack and Alex materialise from the crowd and stand either side of me.

     “Hi guys,” I look nervously around. Jack and Alex have been having such an okay time in school I’m worried that them being seen with me may damage that. Sure enough I catch Chase glaring at the three of us.

     “Uh, maybe you shouldn’t stand there,” I say awkwardly.

     “What? Why?” Jack protests, standing taller defiantly.

     “I just don’t think that it’s good for you two to be seen with me is all,” I say awkwardly. Alex’s face falls but Jack looks mildly amused.

     “What if we don’t want to,” Jack says teasingly.

     “I’m serious, I don’t think it’s a good idea… People might start fucking around with you,” and with that I walk off. I hope I haven’t offended them, they’re two of the endangered species of people actually willing to speak to me. I just don’t want Chase or Logan to start practically running over them.

      “I’m in trouble,” Frank says as soon as I turn into the corridor. “And so are you.”

     “Oh,” I put down my school bag. “What?”.

     “The second you open your locker we’re going on a date with fate.” He taps my locker.

     “What?”

     “You say what a lot.”

     “I’m a quizzical person. Now, what?”

     “Fate isn’t terribly happy that I took you into the world of the dead while you’re still alive. You see these loopholes are supposed to be fate’s own personal gate and was never supposed to be used by anyone.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Especially people who still breathe and stuff.”

     “Oh… so should I go?” I ask nervously.

     “Well you can’t really escape it… It’s fate…” Frank looks nervous.

     “So… now?” I put my hand on my locker. Frank nods and I begin shakily dialling the code. I fear I might miss French. Oh what a pity.

      _But what if you never come back at all_ I think on repeat.

      The metal creaks as I open it and in a split second I’m pulled into the black of the back. Frank and I collide somewhere as we slip through the front door of death.

      When we “land” again, and my eyes adjust there are no people around. There are no yew trees either, just black rippling through a colour I’ve never seen before. It hits me that I’ve never seen this colour before. I’m surrounded by a new colour…

      I gasp at this realisation, I am the only living person to see this colour and that is fucking amazing.

      _Would you rather I return it to a colour from your spectrum,_ a voice says from somewhere. _Maybe red? I know that is a favourite of yours._

      Within seconds the beautiful new colour is replaced by the colour of blood, rippled with black.

      “Um,” I find myself saying aloud, “what…”

      _Is to be your punishment?_ The voice reads my thoughts before I even compose them.

      “Yes. Let’s discuss that.” Frank raises an eyebrow at me.

      _Discuss? Punishment? You have quite an incorrect concept of fate. I am not here to reprimand you and Mr. Frank Iero, only return the balance. You were missing from life for ten thousand eight hundred and fifty one seconds, sir and now those seconds will be added back onto your life in the time of your death, let’s hope for you then that you don’t die painfully._ And then I can hear it no more. The thought that I will spend ten thousand eight hundred and fifty one seconds waiting for death in my final stage.

      I look over at Frank who is nodding, fate obviously talking to him now. “But what if I do?” he says. I have no idea what is being said here now but my mind is wandering quickly. I’m thinking of all the horrible ways I could now have my death prolonged. Like, it would be fine if I was just sleeping and got an extra ten thousand eight hundred and fifty one seconds sleep. But what if I was awake, and was dying by torture or poison or dying from wounds or a disease.

      Frank walks over and places his hand on my shoulder. I close my eyes and let the weird feeling of suction carry us back to the land where I have to breathe and eat and piss. The locker opens and once again I land on my face.

      “You okay?” Frank asks, offering me a hand up. I can hear people in the main hall. Maybe it’s lunch.

      “Yea,” I shake myself off, “What time is it?”

      He shrugs, “whatever time we left. Fate doesn’t deal with normal time.”

      The bell rings before I can ask him what is happening to him to re-establish the balance. I pick up my bag and French things and walk quickly toward my class. Looking back I see Frank climbing back in my locker.

 

“Oui,” I say. The only reply I can conjure to _do you think this is acceptable_ in French. The teacher frowns. I’m obviously not an ideal student. It’s not my fault I just can’t speak French that well. Actually it kind of is considering I spent every French class for the past three years doodling. It really helped my drawing skills though and I perfected noses as a freshman. Last year I also drew a very detailed comic about a boy who became a really famous band member and then went insane. It was almost finished when my teacher took it off me and shredded it in front of the class, making me do detention and penance. Total medieval bitch. I spent three lunch times a week in the school chapel, being stared at by a nun as I recited Hail Mary. The other two days I sat in detention. This carried on for two months.

     My teacher sighs and scribbles something on my homework. She then slides it back to me, calling the next student up. A large, bold, red E glistened with fresh ink in the corner, melting into a disjointed waterfall of words explaining why I deserved this grade. _Messy, no effort, no grasp of the basic grammatical rules,_ etc. Whatever, I walk back to my desk and shove the paper into my bag. It’s not like I actually tried to use nice French. And I can’t help my handwriting…

     After class I get dirty looks left, right and centre. Mainly from Miranda who stands in the hall specifically to glare at me. She believes being able to speak French makes her immediately more attractive and therefore above everyone. It doesn’t help that she is pious in the eyes of the teachers as well as unnaturally hot in the eyes of the students. Beside her stands her friends, and she has many. Talia stands at her right hand side. A place of pride. She scowls just as much as Miranda but she is a more complex character.

      Ask anyone in the school and they will say that Miranda is hot. Boy or girl. But no girls really say it with quite the same feverish acknowledgement as Talia. Other than Miranda, Talia is seen as the schools sex pot of gold. All the guys want to screw Miranda and all the girls want to be her. Only Talia also wants to screw Miranda while being Talia. She hides behind her religion to escape having to do any more than kiss her boyfriends and be seen with them at prom.  

      If I really wanted to fuck with Miranda or Talia, I’d just expose this. That would make them both uncomfortable, whether they believed it or not. Miranda would never let a sinning lesbian stand so close to her, even if they were once best friends. It’s like she believed lesbianism could be passed like a sickness. Idiot.

     I’m just saying, if one in five people are not straight why the fuck would there only be three not straight people in the whole school.

 

The week passes so fucking slowly. Frank isn’t around before class, after class or during lunch so I’m left with a lone hour or therapy. I spend a lot of time on my own drawing.

     School is out for a week for Halloween break, leaving me with yet another week without Frank. Halloween is even his birthday and now I don’t know if I’ll ever get to wish him a happy birthday.

     I wonder if he even knows it’s his birthday.

     Jack and Alex help Mikey organise a Halloween party. Mikey isn’t a social butterfly, or anything like it, so Mikey’s house party is really Jack and Alex’s party in Mikey’s house.

      And I spend it locked into my own room drawing.

      I don’t mean for it to sound sour, Jack and Alex would have loved me to join in, I just know that most of the guests wouldn’t be so delighted. At about two am, when I’m sitting in bed watching Netflix, an energetic knocking rattles my door.

     A very drunk Alex is swaying in my doorway, dressed as a pirate. “Present!” he smiles and shoves a bottle of Smirnoff ice in my hands, “Merry Halloween and a happy New… Yay!” he turns away and stumbles over to my staircase. I leave the bottle on my desk and run over to him.

     “Alex!” I say and grab his elbows before he makes a swan dive over the landing banister. “Come on, sit down here. Yea like that.” I sit him down on the top step. “Okay lets slide down now,” I say sitting beside him. I hold him vaguely steady as we slip down my stairs and land in the front hall.

     Some girl I don’t know is passed out against my coatracks. I see Logan’s younger brother Mathew make his way toward her. “Okay Alex, you’re free,” I say standing up and walking to intervene the likely taking advantage of that girl.

      “FREEDOM!” Alex shouts jumping up. “God bless America!” he grins and runs into my kitchen. I ignore him and stand directly in front of Mathew. Even as a sophomore he’s way taller than me. Luckily he’s drunk.

      “What are you doing Gerarrrrd,” he slurs.

      I bend down next to the girl. “I have to take her upstairs now Mathew,” I pick her up bridal style.

      “No you don’t!” he protests, stamping his feet. “I want to fuck herrrrrrr. She promised”

      “No need to be vulgar, Mathew,” I say struggling to hold the girl’s dead weight. Her head rolls to one side as I try to hitch up her weight. She’s wearing cat ears.

      “Why do you get to?! She was flirting with _me_ earlier, not _you_!”

      “Well I hope you enjoyed that,” I sigh turning away. As I carry the girl up stairs Mathew follows me in form of taunts and complaints.

       “But you’re _gay._ Gay people don’t fuck _girls_!” He cries and throws his shoe at the back of my head. I wince and walk the rest of the way to the spare bedroom on the second floor. Whoever I’m carrying better thank me. I lay her down on the spare bed and leave a tie on the door, hoping that will keep people out. I’m almost back to my room to continue Breaking Bad when I hear frightened knocks and calls from the bathroom on this floor. It was locked from the outside.

      Sighing, I walk over to unlock the door and Talia and another girl fall out of the bathroom, drunk to hell.

      Talia stiffens as she spots me. “You better shut up,” she hisses as the other girl walks down the stairs. Talia shoves her boob down into her white angel dress as if to make it final and walks shakily down the stairs after the other girl.

      I just sigh and re-enter my room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm updating at a much more rapid rate now that I'm off sick XD Only thing is is I've missed a history exam (my favourite subject 3) and I apparently have a shit ton of stuff due all next week which i haven't started. Fear not my procrastination skills mean i definitely won't have it done to any sort of standard... Yaaaay!  
> I shall probably update tomorrow and thank you very much for reading ^-^


	7. Seven

“What makes you say this,” Mr. Corgan says, steepling his fingers and leaning forward over his desk. It’s mid-November and I have been subjected to three counselling sessions a week. The other two days have been spent Frank-free and I’m worried that everything that has happened is just a figment of my imagination and that I may have passed out for those ten thousand eight hundred and fifty one seconds I thought I spent surrounded by the dead. And the yew trees, I don’t think I’ll ever get over the weird breathing yew trees and how I knew they were yews.

     Maybe I just inhale too many chemicals in science.

     “Just… I don’t know,” I sit back in my chair.

     “What have your dreams been like recently then, Gerard,” Mr Corgan says, determined to make me admit to some sort of depression.

     “I don’t know, varied?”

     “Do you ever dream about someone dying?”

     “Yes, actually.”

     “Who?”

     “Either me or someone I know. Can I ask you a question, Mr Corgan?”

     “Yes, of course.”

     “How long have you worked here?”

     “Since the school opened.”

     “And do you remember a student called Frank Iero?”

     Mr. Corgan’s eyes widen and he takes a sudden sharp breath. When he breathes it out again it’s shaky. I’m guessing he did then. After wiping his palms on his pants and re-steepling them he confirms this. “I even was his councillor. This was all twenty three years ago though, Gerard, and he was one of the school’s first students. Why do you ask?”

     “What can you tell me about him?” so I’m not completely making this up. At least not all of it.

      “Um. He was a very troubled person inside, Gerard. Frank, Frank was very badly bullied and not just by the students, a lot of the teachers treated him very badly. This was back when homosexuality was just made legal in this state and a lot of people were still sour to it. And he did indeed have a reputation for it… This is also a very religious school and it was seen as a sin. Still is.”

      “What happened to him, Sir?”  
      “He… He committed suicide, Gerard. It was a very nasty affair. He was found hanging from rafters in the old gym hall. He hung himself in the school. A cleaning lady found him. They tore down that hall and built on the west wing now with those new lockers and classrooms. It was a terrible, terrible thing. And my greatest failure.” He frowns deeply.

       I feel sick. I think Mr. Corgan notices. “I’m sorry if this frightens you Gerard, it is the truth. The very horrible truth. The greatest tragedy our school has ever had, and ever will have. And I never want a repeat. Gerard, please don’t make a repeat of this.”

      I stare up at him shocked. He must believe that I am to follow Frank’s path out of life.

      “Is he the other person who dies in your dreams Gerard?” he asks gently, as if he could startle me like a fucking deer.

      I nod. “And sometimes we die together.”

 

Mr. Corgan officially thinks I’m depressed. Maybe I shouldn’t of brought up Frank but I _had_ to know. I had to know if he ever was real or if I’m completely out of my mind.

     I enter in the library at lunch on Thursday. The halls are pretty safe but the library is even safer.

     I get directions from the woman stamping books at the front desk to a dusty series of shelves in the back containing a shit ton of year books. I search through for the year that Frank was likely to be a junior. I wonder what happened in 2004 because there are way more from then than any other year. Maybe they printed way too many. Maybe nobody wanted them. I pick up one random one and flick through the pages. Blank, every page is blank except inside this particular one some kind of symbol is written on every other page. The symbol resembles one you’d see written in blood in some old asylum movie. I shut the book and shove it back on the shelf. Part of me hopes I didn’t unleash some demon and another part of me is angry that I’m getting so distracted.

     I find a year book from the year I was born. Flipping through the faces of people who are twice my age and read some of the bullshit statements made by the seniors. “Never let life crush your dreams”, “You can do anything you want to”, “You only have one life,” blah, blah, blah, these are terrible. I better think up of something inspirational for mine.

     I’m getting distracted again. I continue to the last shelf until I find the correct year. I skim over the faces of freshmen and sophomores and then I slow down for juniors. Sure enough Frank Iero is poised with an uncomfortable smile and a bust up lip. It is him though, that’s what his face looks like. I definitely didn’t make him up completely.

 

I hand up the torn sheet of algebra with ink splattered all over it. The teacher sighs and begins correcting. When I return to my seat I take out my calculator and begin doing various sums. Sums I can believe I hadn’t done earlier. I divided the extra time I have left in this world, ten thousand eight hundred and fifty one seconds, be sixty to see how many minutes I would have to live. One hundred and eighty point eighty five. So a little over three hours. Literally very little over three hours. Next twenty three plus eighteen. Forty one. If Frank hadn’t killed himself he would now be forty one.

      The thought sends shivers down my spine. My mom is forty six. He would be closer to my mom’s age than mine.

      That’s not something I want to think about. It’s just not right. I can’t imagine him that age. I guess I don’t have to because he’ll never be that age.

      That lunch Chase takes my fucking lunch money again. “You’re really helping my new diet,” I spit at him while I regain my breath. He could just ask for the money, no need to punch me in the fucking stomach every single fucking time. He begins to walk away. “Hey girls!” I say louder, making him halt, “new fad diet! Get Chase to punch you and take your lunch money, now you’ll have no choice but to not eat! It really works to help you lose those extra few pounds!”

     Chase turns to me now, his face red. He walks close and draws his elbow back, “Hey, wanna punch me again? At least this time you have an audience.” I raise an eyebrow at him testily. This could end very badly or very okay. Chase fixes his shirt collar and tosses his hair. The whole hall has turned to stare at us.

      “Fuck off,” Chase mumbles before walking off.

      I’m in the hall walking toward my private wing of the school when a hand lands on my shoulder. I wince turning around, bracing myself for the imminent punch.

      “Here, get some lunch,” a boy from my year says, extending to me five dollars. I think his name is Ray.

      “Uh,” I stare at the money, then at his face, then at his hair, “it’s okay. Really.”

      “No it’s not. Anyone can see you’re getting scarily thin, even in the uniform. Please get some food,” he shoves the money into my hand and then walks quickly off toward the secretary’s office.

     I smile after him meekly before re-entering the lunch hall. Chase is sitting at a table full of the “not terribly smart, not terribly religious but incredibly sporty” guys and several “sometimes smart and religious when it suits, but really self-conscious for someone so far up their own ass” girls. The guys fling several fries at me but I dodge past them into tables occupied by those lower in the pecking order.

      “Hey Gerard,” a girl from my art says without looking up as I walk up behind her chair. She’s doodling boobs on the edge of someone else’s math homework while drinking a vegan soup from home. As far as I know she isn’t actually a vegan.

      “Hi Carla,” I say as I walk past. The boobs have teeth. That’s kinda weird and kinda cool.

      I join the line while it lies finished at a table full of the most pious girls alive today. They’re all incredibly catholic and favourites of the teachers despite having the worldly knowledge equivalent to that of a spoon.

      They glare at me while I wait next to them and the second I move up with the queue they dive into a fit of whispers. I can’t hear what they’re saying and to be honest I don’t think I want to.

     I get fries and curry sauce and a slice of apple pie, and begin to walk to the physic rooms. They’re still the safest place for me and I want to draw.

     I back into the door to open it. “Gerard!” is the greeting and I nearly drop my lunch in shock. Frank is sitting on the desk staring at me.

     “Frank! You’re back!” I put down my tray and without thinking, pounce on him. “Fucking hell man!”

     “Hi,” he smiles as I hug him. He does that weird hologram thing and I let go.

     “Where have you been?”! What happened? What was your part in _returning the balance_?” he shoves a curried chip in my mouth to shut me up.

     “I spent the past ages haunting,” he says, “If a dead person is to be in the world of the living apparently it is only to be fucking haunting so it took like a month of trying not to freak my mother out before fate decided that everything was okay again. I think it was worried that I’d become… solid, again. You know, like if I was to try really hard right now I could probably eat one of those chips and force myself to digest it. Well maybe not, it’d probably get stuck somewhere inside me for eternity and I’d have to make yet another deal with fate to relieve that suffering,” he grins like that’s funny, “fuck it it’s nice to see you. It was good to see my mom too, only I think I scared the shit out of her by accident. I really didn’t mean to but I think my just being there left a bad feeling in the house. She’s old now it’s fucking weird.”

     “Frank, you’d be forty one now,” I say and watch his expression change. His face hardens and then falls completely.

     “Well that’s fucking weird.”

     “Yes but Frank, why are you here now?” I say through a mouthful of curry. This should be disturbing me a lot more than it is.

     “Oh yea,” he scratches the side of his chin and then slides his hand down his chin. “I made another deal.”

      I raise a quizzical eyebrow. He should really stop making deals with fate. They never seem to be particularly kind. I guess they’re not meant to be kind, they’re meant to be fair. “Eh,” he begins, “I can come any time until my platform fills up. When it does, I have to leave.”  
     “What?”

     “There’s that word again,” he smiles.

     “Fuck up, Frank, what?”

     “I have to spend the equivalent time I spent out here,” he gestures around the room, “in what Christians call purgatory.”

     “That exists?”

     “Yea! It’s pretty shit. I was in there for what felt like a very long time. Before fate can deal your hand your spirit remains next to your body. That’s when people get stuck on the way out. Some people choose to stay where they die but that must take some will power. So yea I’ll basically be stuck in full consciousness yet immobile for however long. Not too bad?”

      “You’re opting for torture then?” I say, shocked.

      “Trust me, I’d rather spend all that time in, as you put it, torture, rather than spend the rest of eternity chilling with those people. You know I’ve been dead for what, twenty three years, and I still haven’t made friends. Fucking bullshit.”

      I grin at him. What a fucking idiot. Part of me can’t get over the fact that he’s willing to face purgatory for me. “You’re crazy.”

     “I’m dead.”

     “You’re still fucking crazy.”

     “So are you, you’re talking to the dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is beginning to get really weird but then again i guess it was normal. I have a plan and i know how i want this to go generally but their are random parts i just throw in because yea.   
> One time i had been writing for several hours straight and i got up to go to the bathroom, passed my sister and said "I'm going to the loo, I exclaim needlessly"... My family won't let me live that down...  
> Anyway thanks for reading and thank you very much kudos leavers :))))))) I shall update promptly!


	8. Eight

Christmas. Man I think I’m the only one alive who says they hate Christmas. We go on class mass daily in the last week of school which is really fucking stupid because it takes place at lunch instead of interrupting classes and I only get to see Frank before and after school.

      The random dotting of Christmas trees around the school is really beginning to piss me off too. I walked into one strategically placed around a corner from the cafeteria so that I ended up with a mouth full of fir to ruin the taste of my lunch then after. I can still taste the tree as I walk towards church.

      The worst thing about the “holiday season” has to be the exams. I sit them all in a single, stuffy classroom surrounded by my class who are all doing different subjects. French is surprisingly easy, which is terrifying because that means I must be doing something very wrong. Maths is hard as ever. All of them are pretty difficult to be honest except for art. If I don’t get an A in that I’ll probably just give up.

     “I can’t believe you’ll be gone for two weeks,” Frank sighs next to me as I stuff the last of my books into my locker.

     “I know,” I say, kicking my copy of Macbeth into the back of the locker. Frank winces at my disrespect of the literature. “I wish I could see you on Christmas.”

      “I’ll be so bored without you,” he says. “And lonely. I don’t think I have anything to even say to those people down there, none of them like me.”  
      “You’re a great guy why wouldn’t they like you?” I say smiling down at him.

     He rolls his eyes and then pulls my head down to kiss me. I kiss back for a minute and then pull away, “there’s a window over the car park there.”

     “No one will see,” he says exasperatedly, pulling me back in for another kiss.

     “Frank!”

     “Five minutes in that room,” he points to our physics room, “and then you can go and enjoy the festivities without me.”  
     “I never enjoy the festivities,” I complain following him into the class.

     “Fuck off at least you can still eat, I miss food,” and with that he pulls me over to a desk.

 

My mom tries to get me to go to confession before Christmas. “It will be good for your soul,” she says. There’s just another thing to ask Frank, is confession good for your soul. Probably not. It’s December twenty second, and we’re standing, freezing outside of the church. Mikey is currently in under confession. I don’t even know what he could confess to. “Father I have drank vodka and I am but sixteen,” or maybe “Father I have fallen prey to the sin of lust by fucking my girlfriend”.  All of that is stuff that could “damage his soul” in the eyes of the church but it’s nothing that he would ever admit to. It took me ages to get it out of him myself.

     “Can we at least go inside?” I say to my mom as I shiver.

     “Will you do confession?”

     “Yea, sure,” I will do anything to stop shivering,

     I try compile a list of my sins. I have so many but none that I’m really up for sharing with some sixty year old priest. _Sorry that I like guys, sorry that I went into the land of the dead, sorry that I got a hand job off a soul, sorry I like vodka, sorry I smoke cigarettes, sorry I’m a lazy ass, sorry I don’t pay attention in school, sorry that I suck at everything, sorry that I’m just not that religious… at all._ Okay maybe I can make them milder.

     By the time it’s my turn I’ve vaguely decided what I’m going to say. “Hi Father,” I begin into the black curtain.

     “Hello.”

     “Father I wish to confess my sins and pay the due penance for what I have done,” I begin. “I fear that I may have committed three of the deadly sins. I am shamefully lustful, as are many my age, and I rue it so.” _Bullshit I love it._ “I have fallen prey to sloth and loathingly been left behind in my studies. I have also been glutinous in the run up now to the feast of Christmas.”

     I listed out my sins for a much shorter length of time than Mikey. My mom looks disappointed when I come out but not completely sour. We kneel then in the church and I get a head start on all the Hail Marys I have to do while my mom confesses her sins. Mikey and I race while saying them.

 

Mikey attends a Christmas party at Jack’s house a few days after Christmas. I was invited too but didn’t go, as usual. Mikey is full of gossip when he returns and I listen to it all as he recaps the “who made out with who” and the “who was drunkest” stories. Apparently Jack and Alex got extraordinarily drunk and were about to fuck in the kitchen when Mikey had to draw them apart and bring them upstairs into Jack’s room. Jack was then found sitting on the step at the top of the stairs with his head in his hands. Still incredibly drunk he confessed to Mikey, “I didn’t use protection what if I get Alex pregnant! Or worse what if he gets me pregnant.” And Mikey had to spend a half hour trying to convince him that that couldn’t happen.

     My parents are going out to some mountain spa thing for New Year’s so a New Year’s party is quickly arranged for our house. Again Jack and Alex get to work straight away. Refining the guest list with Mikey in my kitchen I hear Alex exclaim, “no way! I don’t care if they’re popular and will bring lots of booze, they will be dicks to Gerard!” I smile meekly at this.

    The party is set for New Year’s Eve and will continue into the New Year so that they can have the whole countdown thing and the kissing into the New Year. Blah blah I won’t be leaving my room.

     The guests begin to arrive at eight o’clock and the heavy drinking commences shortly after. Alex slips me a bottle of fat frog at half past. Stupidly I drink it all while alone in my room and by nine the bottle is empty and my brain is very fuzzy. Jack knocks on my door and I let him and Alex in. We do a load of quick shots before I realise what I’m doing.

     Those shots were a very big mistake.

     With my sense completely lost I agree to Jack and Alex bringing me from my room and into the party. I know a lot of people here. But then again I don’t.

      “Gerard?” someone says behind me. I do an unsteady one eighty turn on my heels to face Carla.

     “Howdy,” I say before hiccupping. “Welcome to my home.”

     “I did not expect to see you here,” she says. I don’t think, by her pronunciation, that she is very drunk.

     “Don’t be dumb,” I smile, “this is my house too.”

     “Yea, I know. I’ve been to parties here before but your always in your room.”  
     “Jack and Alex made me leave,” I say throwing my arm in the direction of the two boys. Alex is taking shots balanced on Jack’s stomach. When Alex says something between two shots, Jack starts laughing, spilling supermarket vodka all over himself.

     “Okay…” Carla says looking past me. “Want to go get a drink. I’ve only had two shots and a cup of god knows what and am way too sober to deal with certain people.” She tosses a glance at some girls flirting with some guys in a corner.

     “Sure!” I say and we walk off to my kitchen where some kids from a different school are taking pills. I pay no attention to them and grab a beer from the cooler. 

     “Want to finish this with me?” Carla says holding up a bottle of vodka. There seems to be only a little actually taken from it.

     “Sure!” I say again.

     “Drunk you is incredibly enthusiastic,” she says with a dry smile.

     We go into my utility and sit down by the washing machine. The room is dark and we don’t turn the light on. We pass the bottle back and forth for a while. When we’re about half way through Carla stops herself and starts digging around in her pockets. “Better roll this before I get too drunk,” she says pulling papers and packets from her pocket.

      I keep drinking the vodka until I can barely see what she’s doing. I put down the bottle between my legs and stare at her as she lights the twisted ends of whatever she just rolled. “What’s in that?” I slur.

      She takes a pull and passes it to me, “hash and tobacco. Want a drag?” she breathes out. We pass that back and forth. It burns my throat, but so did the vodka and I’m beyond caring. When both the bottle and the joint are finished we lie back against my washing machine. _You will remember this in the morning_ I tell myself forcefully. I don’t want to be one of those people who get drunk and forget everything. And I don’t want to forget Carla’s being nice to me.

      “Gerard,” she says after a while. I turn to face her and she puts a hand on my neck before kissing me. Her mouth tastes like vodka, smoke and cherry lipstick

      I kiss her back for a minute before I realise what I’m doing. “Nooooo,” I slur quietly, making her draw back. “Not good. Bad in fact.”  
     “Shit,” she says straightening and dropping her arm back to her side. “What’s wrong?”

     “I have… a person. And I can’t be kissing you if I have a person because fertility? That’s not the word… fidelity? Fi… I dunno…” I have no idea how anyone could make sense of that.

     “Ah,” she says and pats my knee, “I didn’t count on you having a boyfriend, sorry.”

     “It’s okey dokey,” I reply. We sit on my utility floor for another while anyway.

 

I begrudgingly walk up the icy steps into my school. January is freezing here. Nothing but ice covering everything. Mikey walks up frozen behind me. The last few days of the holidays were horrible. I got a shit ton of anonymous messages suggesting New Year’s resolutions for me. _Stop being gay/stop being a faggot_ being the top choices. Closely followed by _stop being an emo_ and _stop breathing._

Also my parents found out about the party from the neighbours who were almost going to call the police. Also there was a bottle of Jack hidden in my dad’s Sunday coat pocket.

      So Mikey and I got in a lot of shit for that. Also my mom caught me smoking again. And my beautiful report card came, elegantly decorated in Ds, Es and one F. The best grade I got was an A in art but my parents don’t consider that a real subject. Worse than them being pissed off with me they’re blaming themselves. They think that they, as parents, have failed to make me give a shit about school. I guess I’m just the kid who fails at everything.

      Literally all the worst things imaginable added up to a miserable few days.

      The second I step in the door I get shoved hard from the side and land awkwardly half in the trash can nearby. I don’t even get to see who did it. I don’t care it could be anyone. Mikey helps me up and I walk through the school awkwardly.

      Frank isn’t there before class. My teachers are all very angry with my lack of care. They all think I am a failure of a student and I guess they’re right.

     At lunch I skip getting food and run straight to the physics room. Between two classes earlier Carla caught me and said that people were trying to convince the principal to expel me based on religion. Saying that this was a catholic school and that I break a prominent religious rule. Apparently he is considering it. Carla says he won’t but _that’s not the point._

     Frank is thankfully in the physics room when I get there. “Hey! How was Christmas?” he chirps when I enter.

     I drop my school bag and fall to the floor, bursting into tears. “I want to die Frank. I want to leave here behind and die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys :) guess who managed to do an unthinkable amount of algebra today without crying! It took ages but it was kind of easy, that's what's making me think i did something very wrong...  
> Thank you very much for reading guys :)) let me know what you think and i'll update as soon as i can


	9. Nine

FRANK POV

I watch him walk away. Every extra second I spend now staring at his ass as he walks down that hall will come back to bite me when I have to spend equivalent time in purgatory but at the moment I don’t care. Even after he’s gone around the corner I wait in the hall. I walk as far to the edge of my boundary as I can. Same as last time. I still can’t believe that in all this time Gerard never asked why I didn’t leave this part of the hall. Or how I died. In fact Gee leaves himself big fucking holes that I know I’d be dying to fill if I were him. Now I’m dying for him to ask because I’ve prepared long ass speeches. I’ve even perfected the wording just so. I guess he’s probably assumed what happened or something. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.

     I go to stand by the window and watch him and who I assume is Mikey, his brother, walk away through the car park.

     He doesn’t look back but I can see him hunch his shoulders against the cold. I try and remember what it’s like being cold. Maybe I’m cold right now, maybe I’ll be cold forever and not realise it. I try and remember what it’s like being hot.

     Maybe souls aren’t meant to feel temperatures.

     Some guys are approaching Gerard. They don’t match the description he gave of Jack and Alex. I start getting really nervous just looking out the window. One of the boys shoves Gerard into a car next to him. “You fucking prick,” I gasp, pressing harder now on the glass.

      Gerard’s brother tries shooing them or something but before he can help Gerard off the ground the other boy kicks Gerard square in the stomach and then jogs off. I only realise now that I’m kicking the glass and growling. I wish I could fucking haunt the shit out of those assholes.

     Gerard and his brother, Mikey, walk shakily off and only when they are well out of sight do I walk back to the locker.

     I stand on my hands against a yew tree for a while thinking about what Gerard had said before he went home. _I don’t want to have to face another day; I don’t want to have to spend another second with the people of this world; is dying painful; why would I stay here with them when I could stay there with you._ I don’t really see why he would stay in that world anyway.

     I know what I would do. Well that’s because I know what I did. Only he would have to spend three hours or so feeling the last sensation to “keep the balance”.

     I return to my feet. I don’t know why I don’t stand upside down all the time, just because I can. I don’t get tired and my head doesn’t hurt.

     I wander around the patches of yews for a long while. My thoughts drift but mainly I think of Gerard’s predicament. What if he hangs himself like I did and has to feel that terrible choking feeling for three hours? Surely someone would find him within that time and fucking bring him back to life. Then the whole exercise would be pointless and everyone would think him some miracle being able to survive hanging. Then the scientists would get him and after tests and trying to hang him again, at some point the three hours would be up and he’d die in some government facility nowhere near me and have to spend his eternity completely alone.

     Maybe I’m thinking too deeply.

     He could drown. I hear it’s peaceful. But can anything that kills you by stopping the process of breathing really be peaceful, I don’t want him to die like that.

     He could sit in a bonfire. If he burned down to ash how could he really survive three hours. I push that thought away as quickly as I can, fate would find a way. Anyway burning would fucking hurt.

     If he shot himself would he have to feel the pain of having a bullet in him for those three hours? That would be truly fucking terrible. There’s no way anyone could resuscitate him then with a bullet lodged in his brain. Oh god he’d have that feeling for all purgatory then too and when he finally got here he would probably be gone insane with the pain.

     No, shooting himself would be bad. No matter the glamour he seems to feel for blowing his brains against the ceiling.

     That reminds me, I can’t believe Kurt Cobain shot himself. A whole generation of kids will be warned not to listen to him now because that would be a bad influence. I’ve seen it before and fuck it nirvana had some excellent songs and even better messages but if Cobain did kill himself society would immediately condemn it. I pause from considering Gerard’s options for a while to sing some nirvana songs into a tree before continuing on again.

     Maybe he could stab himself… no that would be super sore for three hours as well. Not to mention having to spend the rest of eternity with a random stab wound he’d end up having to try explain to everyone here.

     There must be a way he could die in his sleep. Peacefully like so the extra three hours wouldn’t be noticed.

     Inspiration hits me later when I overhear a conversation between some of the women. “He made a deal with fate.” “I know it’s been a very long time!” “Well he said he just couldn’t tolerate the feeling anymore. After years of drug addiction he only doesn’t want to be high now that he’s dead.”

     I know now, Gerard could overdose. Then at least in those three hours he could just be high. Then when he gets here I’ll bring him to get a deal with fate and after some little fucked up task he can be okay and we can live here forever.

    

“Oh,” Gerard says during his lunch break when I tell him my idea. He’s eating a disturbingly oily slice of pizza. He’s got a black eye and a bust up lip. He says he got jumped yesterday and doesn’t know who did it. I believe him, despite seeing those boys yesterday. I’d been beat up plenty of times and I know that what they did couldn’t have caused such injuries to his face.

      “Well? Would you consider it?” I don’t mean to sound so pushy. Fuck sake Frank.

      “Well, yes. Yes I will. I have absolutely no want to stay here and that means I wouldn’t be in pain for those three hours right?

      I nod, “I don’t think that would hurt. I mean I’ve done drugs, they don’t hurt.”

      He visibly turns this over in his mind while finishing the pizza. “What drug would you suggest then?”

      “Something that gets you very high so you can enjoy it,” I say, wondering if there are any new drugs since I died.

      “So…?”

      “Heroin?”

      He goes pale, “no way. No needles man.”

      “You could snort it, then you’d die for sure.” He looks unamused. Maybe it’s too early to joke about the end. That’s literally the only kind of humour on the otherside.

      “Em… Cocaine?” I suggest. Gerard shakes his head. “Why not?”

      “I don’t want my family to find me like that. I don’t want to leave with the reputation of an addict,” he says this very matter-of-factly. I don’t get the point of this at all but whatever.

      “Okay, what about an anti-depressant. You just talk to a therapist, get a prescription, take a month’s worth of pills in an hour. See some groovy shit, then join me.” I’m a fucking genius and he better appreciate this.

      “Never ever say groovy again, but yes. Yes that could work. It would be very easy for me to get prescribed,” he says proudly.

      “What, how?”

      “I just tell them how I really feel.”

 

It takes Gerard eleven sessions with the school councillor to convince Mr. Corgan that he needs professional help. I believe he could have done this much quicker but I feel his reluctance to talk about his feelings with anyone. It’s February apparently, that no longer means anything to me. Come to think of it, it never really did.

      I’m lying under a tree for hours it’s a Saturday in the land of the breathing so there’s no real point in me leaving. I got Gerard to leave me books in the classroom and I’d go up and read them only that on weekends they lock the classrooms. I tried bringing books in here but it didn’t work. Fate is fucking sick of the mingling between realities.

      Someone comes over to me while I’m attempting to shimmy up a yew tree after a while. “Frank Iero?” he says.

      “Howdy do?” I reply. I’m halfway up the yew and they’re still taller.

      “Uh someone has arrived down here and they’re asking for you,” he says and I half throw myself half fall on the floor next to him.

       He doesn’t say anything just follows behind quietly as I run as fast as I can manage, even stumbling every few feet. “Gerard” I half mumble half call half wonder. I am aware that nothing has three halves but fuck logic.

     I push through the random gathering of people calling “Gerard? Gerard!”

      I break through them but not to see Gerard, instead there stands my mother. “Oh Frank!” she gasps and throws her seventy something year old self at me.

 

Nothing like catching up with family after twenty three years. I tell mom how much I’ve missed her and I explain the situation. I continue on to explain that I was in fact in her house around my birthday and that I’m terribly sorry for blowing out the birthday candles on the cake she made to celebrate my birthday without me and scaring her shitless.

      It takes her an understandably long time to process everything. Every now and again while I’m, speaking she’d interject with, “You look exactly as you did the day we buried you,” or “what a pretty tree that is.”

      When she does finally begin to realise this is real she gets very angry. “You left me!” she states.

       “I had to mom.”

      “No you did not! Young man you broke my heart. You broke my heart and left it in pieces for twenty three years. Twenty three long years! You selfish boy, how could you do that. Did your friends even cross your mind?”

      “I didn’t have friends, mom.”

      “Don’t you interrupt me, yes you most certainly did. You had that one boy, whatshisname and he went completely crazy afterwards. You know he went into school and tried to set some boys who were mean to you on fire? Of course you didn’t because _you left_ ,” she spits the words accusingly, “and that’s not even considering your family. Did your family ever cross your mind Frank? Did you ever even consider what you were doing to me? What you were doing to your aunts and uncles? And your little cousins who idolised you. They were all so young Frank and we had to explain to them that they weren’t going to see you again. Oh how Louisa balled her eyes out! You inconsiderate, selfish boy. You have no idea how many hearts you broke. Two of your teachers resigned, your friends all lost their minds with guilt! And me Frank, excuse me if I was selfish but you were my only child and you left me. A mother is _not_ supposed to bury her son.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! This morning i thought i was feeling better so i went into school. Big. Fucking. Mistake. Seriously i randomly broke out with a fever during Irish and i couldn't take off my jumper even though i was sweating because i have a short sleeved shirt under. Then i had such a coughing fit in my free class i fell off my chair... I also gave up walking and fell to my knees in the middle of French. I'm giving my class fuel to think i'm an absolute weirdo. Then in my last class some lads made antifeminist jokes and i lost my shit completely :/   
> Sorry for always ranting to you here :L  
> Thank you for reading my weird ass gay stories and reading my complaints, :* I'll update soon


	10. Ten

GERARD POV

 

I leave the sparkling white of the therapists’ foyer. I’ve heard of loads of studies that suggest certain colours help with your mood. Therapists should probably take a page from that fucking book, and not surround your depressed patients with bright lights and white walls. It gives off the vibe that you were being studied, not helped. Anyway, I didn’t have to wait long for the therapist to call me in. We came straight here after school on Friday and my uniform was beginning to itch me with help of the weird seats in the white room. The long thin woman I presume is the therapist, went to university with Mr. Corgan, apparently, only she continued on to be even more qualified and had published a shit ton of books on depression in teenagers. Looking at her across the desk, her qualifications a halo of certificates behind her, you’d think she was never a teenager.

      The room is much more okay than the foyer. It has cream walls but wooden floors. A massive window takes up one wall and a series of bookshelves and an abstract painting take up another wall. I stare at the painting for a while. I have never see a womb, my eyes being closed when I was in one, but if I had to describe what a womb looks like, that painting would be it.

      “Hello, Gerard,” the therapist said, pulling my attention away from the wall.

      “Hello.”

      We spoke pleasantries for the first thirteen minutes. Not what she was hoping for obviously. After the general stuff she says the obvious kick starter, “How are you feeling, Gerard?”

      “The weather seems to be getting better,” I’d said, staring out the big glass window onto the carpark. No frost this morning for some really strange reason.

      “Do you feel like the weather, Gerard?”

      “Do you?”

      “Do I?”

      “Yes, Mrs… Dr Spelunker.”

      “We’re not here to talk about me.”

      “Oh yea. What was the question again?”

      “Do you feel like the weather?”

      “I rarely feel breezy or snowy, what’s the relevance doctor?”

      “You know there is relevance there, Gerard.”

      “Ah yes. Shrinks love the metaphors. Well I don’t know, doctor, if I like the cold then if I say I’m feeling chilly like the weather would you take that as the way you feel when you are chilly or the way I do, because I like the cold. And if I said I feel like the weather in the way that I’m not frosty every morning how would you take that considering I do so love the cold. Doctor.” I lean back in my seat and see her eyes twinkle above the rims of her wire glasses.

      “You’re a very intelligent boy,” she said obviously thinking that over.

      “I’m not really, I’m averaging a D even though I mainly get less.”

      “Then how are you averaging a D?”

      “I got an E in math, Doc, I have no idea how to average things.”

      So I continue like that for a while before I say anything of real importance. It takes me a while to warm up, really. After I admitted that I like the cold because I feel like I don’t deserve the heat anymore we began a new series of metaphors.

      They were based on me being a fish. So cliché. “Do you feel like you’re trying to swim against the current?”

      “I am flowing against the current.”

      “Sometimes that can make you stronger.”

      “Sometimes it can make you change course.”

      “Will it make you change yours?”

      “Nope.”

      “And high school can be so big, do you often feel out of your depth?”

      “What kind of sucky-ass fish can get out of their depth?”

      “Metaphorically, Gerard.” She’d sighed then. I wonder if she’s supposed to do that or if I’m just so goddam exasperating.

      Soon the forty minute first session was over and I was sent into the fucking pale divinity of the waiting room while my mom discussed me with Dr Spelunker.

      “You want to get some food sweetie?” my mom says a pace or two behind me.

      “Sure. Am I getting another appointment?” I try to sound uninterested.

      “Let’s discuss this over lunch. That lovely coffee place on Parker’s Avenue perhaps?” Oh shit.

      “Why can’t you just tell me whether I will go back into that white world or do you really need to get on my good side with coffee?”

      My mom sighs and gets in the car. I guess this information really does need coffee.

 

“I am scheduled to go to sessions twice a week,” I say to Frank on Monday at lunch. I couldn’t that morning because he told me his mom had died and even though he obviously wasn’t grieving, it just didn’t seem cool to talk about that.

     “Oh good,” Frank smiles.

     “I haven’t been prescribed yet though, this woman seems fucking professional. I wish I got one who hands out pills easy. She’s published loads of books and I think one of them might be all anti-antidepressants,” I take another bite of my home made sandwich. It tastes fucking strongly of garlic, I have no idea why. Maybe I used the wrong knife… or plate… or maybe I put garlic in…

     “Good.”

     “Good?”

     “Good.”

     “How the fuck is that good?”

     “Because then you won’t die.” I look at him under knitted brows. He looks completely sincere.

     “What?”

     “Maybe what can be our always.”

     “What?”

     “What.”

     “No seriously. What do you mean?”

     He throws a blue book at me. _The Fault in Our Stars by John Green._ “Frank..?”

     “It’s good, if not a bit girly. Apparently it’s becoming a movie.”

     I sigh, “ _Became._ All the girls here are into it. But seriously Frank what’s up? You’re acting different.”

     “Yep. I have changed my mind.”

     “About?

     “You.”

     My jaw drops. Does he just not like me anymore? Has he found some hot dead person… or has his mom said something? He _isn’t_ looking at me the same way at all how the fuck didn’t I notice it. He seems so passive, dismissive, tired and he can’t be tired because he’s dead and dead people don’t tire. How the fuck am I so blind and stupid that I didn’t see when he liked me at first and now that he’s stopped and fuck it why are my eyes watering this is pathetic and lame.

     “Gerard…”

     “Why,” I cough more in protest than actually asking. I must look so stupid and sad right now.

     “I just don’t think that this… that this is a good idea. You have a family. And you have friends. Don’t lie you do,” he looks uncomfortable. My mind is searching for the relevance of.

     “Frank, if you don’t like me that way anymore just say it. I don’t like trying to guess this shit.” My heart is pounding hard. Maybe he is being very plain and I’m just not getting it because my brain won’t let me see past the fucking pain of it. Rejection is better than being dumped by somoeone you are going to _die for._  

     He looks kind of surprised. _Thanks Frank, add to my what-the-fuck thought process._ “Gerard, I do like you, a shitton in fact, I just really think you shouldn’t die.”

      Oh. “Oh.”

      The silence is thick enough to cut it with a knife.

      Well apparently a hiccup has the same tension-breaking ability. “Oh I forgot about hiccupping!” Frank exclaims. “I haven’t hiccupped since I died!”

      “Why would you even?” I laugh. Both of us return to quiet pondering after a second, my hiccups muffled.

      “I think I may need to explain my reason for this,” Frank says after another minute.

      Then the fucking bell rings.

      “I should go,” I say angrily.

       Frank nods, “yep, after school.”

       I dash out and turn awkwardly at a run down the hall.

 

After art, I push through the throngs of people to get to my locker. By the turn down to my corridor I find Jack doubled over and coughing his lungs up and Alex all but pissing his pants with laughter.

      “What the fuck, Alex is he okay?” I say dropping my sketchbook immediately to hit Jack on the back. He makes a small gurgling noise and spits something into his hand but continues coughing. He gestures for me to stop and I take a step back.

       “Alex you fucking idiot he was _choking,_ ” I say before bending down to pick up my book.

       “Yea but the irony of it was funny,” Alex says and then looks at Jack, “sorry, just you were choking on a _lifesaver,_ you gotta see the irony. Also I didn’t think it was actually choking.”

      “Not funny Alex he may have actually died,” I sigh.

     “Yea but I didn’t think he was _actually_ choking. I thought he was just doing it for the irony,” Alex suddenly looks guilty. “Sorry Jack,” he says with outstretched arms, inviting Jack into a hug.

     “You fucking prick,” Jack laughs shoving his shoulder lightly.

     “Okay… I have to go get my books,” I say beginning down the hall.

     “We’re walking you home so hurry the fuck up!”

     Frank is waiting, staring out at the carpark, forehead pressed to the window.

     “Hi,” I open my locker.

     “Hello.”

     “So…?”

     “You can’t die because that would be selfish.”

     “No it wouldn’t I want it too. I’m not just doing this for you, stupid, I’m trying to get out of here,” I swing my arm to gesture at the school, hitting it hard off the open locker door.

     “You’re graduating soon.”

     “Not soon enough.”

     “You, Gerard, have survived eighteen years, you can survive a few more months.”

     “You couldn’t, you fucking hung yourself with even less time to go!” He winces. A step too far possibly.

     “Yea. Yea I did but don’t be an asshole, Gee. I was selfish. I left my family.”

     “My family will be okay without me. I’m just a burden at this stage.”

     Frank is shaking his head. “No, Gee, no they won’t be. I was dead twenty three years and my mom never got over it.”

      “Whatever,” I pick up my school bag and march away. This isn’t how he’s supposed to act. He’s supposed to make it easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo y'all!  
> I did not go into school today and spent the day watching music videos and reading a book i got off my friend but i did manage to update, because yea ^ that's it.  
> You know that relative you have (possibly, idk you might not) that if you weren't related and were, say, in the same school, you'd be complete opposites. Like the other day i was talking to my cousin who is like weirdly popular and has loads of friends and she saw a poster on my wall of Fall Out Boy and told me about these two "proper creeps" in her class who played FOB. I got all defensive of the honour of fob and she said, "no but Ella these are ACTUAL emos and they're really weird and annoying and all they do is listen to music and draw". Like, oh. That's not literally me at all.   
> I shall update with great haste i think! Thanks for reading :))


	11. Eleven

Jack and Alex are hyper as fucking ever on the walk home, shoving and laughing and walking on walls beside the sidewalk like children. Zack is walking with us too and at one point Alex jumps down from the wall singing “Catch me, fair night!” and landing in Zack’s arms. It’s amazing that Zack could catch him, I’d never manage to pick up that adult sized idiot let alone catch one falling from the sky.

     Mikey was quiet and gloomy for most of the walk. His girlfriend dumped him and he failed a math test. After his millionth sigh Jack and Alex stand right in his path, hands on hips. “Michael James Way. I think that this turn of events can only work to your benefit,” Alex says.

     “What?” Mikey says incredulously. _How could failing math ever be a benefit._

     “You should now realise that these girls aren’t worth it,” Jack says.

     “You should consider the life of Gay,” Alex says.

     Jack answers everyone’s raised eyebrows, “It can get hard.”

     “But it always perks up after a while,” Alex says. Oh god I see where this is going.

     “With someone there to give you a hand.”  
     “It’d blow you… away.”

     “And pull you off your feet.”

     “They can be such a pain in the ass, though.”

     “Sometimes it really sucks, actually.”  
     “But sometimes things that suck help you get back up.”

     “A gay relationship is one that keeps giving and giving and giving and-”

     “Oh my fucking god!” Mikey says through laughter, “For fuck sake!” We all laugh as we continue down the road. Mikey doesn’t sigh again the rest of the day.

 

I sit opposite Frank. Neither of us speak at all really. He said hi, I reciprocate. When I’m finished my sandwich he sits on the same desk. “Gerard. You can’t do this.”

     “You can’t stop me.”

     “True.”

     “So…”

     “I can’t stop you but I can advise you. As your only fucking friend let me give you this piece of advice,” he looks really serious.

     “Yesterday you told me I have friends to try and stay for.”  
     “There not strictly yours.”

     “Don’t be an asshole.”

     “I’m not, Gerard. Your _family_ and your _friends_ want you to stay alive,” he puts so much emphasis on those two words.

     “Why can’t I tell them about the locker?”

     “Because then you’ll be in purgatory too.”

     “With you.”

     “Not with me, that place is solitude, dude.”

     “I’ll get used to it. Besides, I can stay this young and beautiful then forever.”

     “Now you’re being an asshole.”

     “Sorry. But seriously, you can’t say that you wouldn’t like me to be there with you. So you wouldn’t be alone and I wouldn’t be fucking here.”

     “Gerard,” Frank looks troubled. “I obviously want to be with you, I just know that I’m not the only one who does.”

     “You literally are,” I sigh, “I have been told so often to kill myself I’ll just be doing what I’m told.”

     “You’re not going to kill yourself,” Frank says.

     “I am.”

     “No-”

     “My mind is so made up about this,” I say, crossing my arms.

     “Don’t be an asshole.” He walks over to the teacher’s desk and picks up a permanent marker.

     “What are you doing, Frank?”

     He walks to the white board and quickly scrawls large _GERARD WAY WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF, STOP HIM!_

“Frank!” I shout jumping up and running over to him, “That is permanent! That won’t come off!” I try to run at him and grab it but when I touch him he’s only the vaguest bit solid and it weirds me out so much I step backwards so he can run over to the window and again scrawl _THIS IS SERIOUS STOP HIM._ When I finally grab him and grab the marker he’s shaking with rage. I didn’t know he could still do that.

      “I just can’t let you do this,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do this.”

 

My luck that one of the only two physics classes in the whole school is the second one after lunch. Sure enough the teacher gets freaked out and sends for Mr. Corgan while the students flip out completely.

     I’m taken out of art to discuss the whole thing. “Gerard. I don’t believe this is just some guys messing around. Everyone in this school knows how serious this is. Suicide… we don’t joke about suicide.”

     “Obviously some people do.”

     “Gerard. No they don’t.”

     The awkward truth of this matter is I ended up crying. I was just so flustered and frustrated and tired and Mr. Corgan knew _exactly_ which buttons to press. I guess that shit’s his job. Like the past few weeks he’s just been finding my weaknesses to fucking dance around them before stabbing them with a fiery iron poker.

     It only got worse when my mom came and picked me up from Mr. Corgan’s office to bring me straight to Dr Spelunker. Poor Mikey, he’ll have to walk home in the driving rain, probably with people all around him talking about his suicidal brother he never thought was _that bad._ The thing is I’m not _that bad_ really, well maybe I am only I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t know what happens on the otherside. If I still thought you were dead and gone when you’re dead and gone then I’d probably stay around a while longer.

     “Gerard, hello,” Dr Spelunker says when I walk into her room, the womb painting staring down at me. For some reason the word placenta is in my head now. Placenta. _Placenta._ Why would anyone think to call something such a gross word? I sit down opposite her disgusted at my own thoughts.

     “Hi.”  
     “How’re you?”

     “Okay.”

     “No you’re not,” she consults her laptop. “Mr. Corgan emailed me some photographs, who did this Gerard?” she turns around the screen so I can see the words. Frank had added to them after I left. _SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, HELP ME SAVE HIM_ now decorates the teacher’s desk and a poster about some complicated formula on the back wall.

      “Oh wow,” I say in general awe, “someone doesn’t want me to die.”

      “Who?”

      “I could not tell you. No one cares that much.” She folds her arms down on the table, staring at me over her glasses. Her eyes are so blue it’s almost scary.

     “Is that what you think?”

     “What?”

     “That nobody cares.”

     “Well, they don’t.”

     “I do.”

     I smirk at her, “that’s because you’re paid to. You’re paid to try keep me on this side of life. Other people, well nobody cares for free.”

     “Is that what you think?”

     “You say that like its opinion not fact.”

     “Well it’s not opinion, or fact. You’re looking at it wrong.”

     “How am I?”

     “Billy- Mr Corgan cares for one.”

     “Paid.”

     “No not exactly, he puts in more time with you than he’s paid to. Second your mom cares very much. And your dad and brother I’m sure.”

     “You don’t know my family.”

     “I know about _families_ Gerard. I know how suicide effects families,” she stands up and walks over to her bookshelf then. After a minute or so of skimming over titles she stops on a big hardback and drops it down on the table in front of me. “I don’t mean to brag, Gerard, but I have written a lot of books. I’ve dealt with a lot of cases and their families and with every teenager who couldn’t break through their black curtain, I’ve seen a world fall apart. This book here,” she taps it, “I wrote about three cases. Three different teenagers who I tried but just couldn’t help. What each child was able to teach me before they left this world and how each family dealt.”

     I pick up the heavy book. The first kid is a very young looking girl called Constance. “Thirteen when she killed herself,” Dr Spelunker said. I wince and flick through to troubled teen number two. A boy who looked about twenty stares up at me accusingly, “Fifteen.” Michael, I wonder if his family called him Mikey. The final boy is all too familiar, “eighteen,” I say at the same time as the therapist.

     When I look up she’s staring at me. Measuring me maybe. Possibly just wondering why I recognised someone who died five years before I was ever even born.

     “He went to my school,” I explain.

     “I am aware. I do believe it’s something they take care not to mention.”

     “Yea well they’re hardly proud, homophobic assholes, students and teachers, driving a perfectly great person to suicide.”

      She stares at me for a long while, letting the weight of my own words sink in. “Oh.”

      “Oh indeed.”

      “Can I borrow this book?”

      “Of course, as long as you return it.”

      “I’d like to read the passages about Frank’s family.”

      “Of course.”

      Then after a minute she asks, “Do you blame the teachers, for how you feel, Gerard?”

      “Some of them. Really they’re only mean because I’m an idiot and suck at everything they try teach me.”  
      “Is that your theory?”

      “It’s not a theory, it’s a fact. Just like the fact that kids in my school are mean because I suck at being cool, normal, social and straight.”

      “You can’t suck at being straight, Gerard.”

      “Oh no, you totally can. And I do. I suck at being straight.”

      “That’s like saying you suck at liking milk if you don’t like milk,” it’s weird to hear her talk like that.

      “Well I rock at liking milk. Just like I rock at being a gay loser.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left oh. my. lawd. Well i'll try write it tomorrow, if i can. I don't think I'm busy.   
> In fact I'm going ice skating with my class so i won't have homework. A brand new way to embarrass myself: ice skating.  
> Anyhow, thank you very much for reading and please let me know what you think ^.^


	12. Twelve

_“I never thought to see the end of my son’s book. His chapter of school had yet to be written. He was only eighteen but he always seemed younger because he was so small. Even after he got those silly tattoos he seemed like he still needed my protection. I didn’t want to cow him or get too involved in his affairs because the more I tried to the more he pushed me away. I guess in the end if I could have saved him he wouldn’t let me._

_“I knew he was getting bullied. What mother ca see her son come home with black eyes, fat lips and bruises everywhere and not know. And then there were the cuts, I could never tell who made them. I had gone to the school. The councillor was working with him but he was the only staff member, as far as I could see, that gave a damn about this boy who was being discriminated against. When I spoke to the school they said they were handling it. I guess I believed them because I knew they didn’t want me involved, I don’t think Frank did either._

_“I spoke to parents, I spoke to therapists, I consulted every damn book out there but I guess now what I should have done is talk to my son._

_“It still doesn’t seem real. I mean it took nine months to make that boy. That man, that person. He was unique and funny, sweet and diligent and they tore him down for his differences. I’ve heard people now blame him. Blame his sexuality, his height, his music, everything that made my boy who he was. But I could never blame him. I could only blame me. I see some parents even tear their own kids down. If children see everyone around them feeling uncomfortable with who they are you’re only going to have trouble. I made it known that I didn’t judge Frank but he went from horrible environments at school to his room. I can’t say I didn’t think things were wrong. All I can say is I wish I had made them right._

_“You have only one job as a parent, to nurture your child and help them grow, and I failed that. I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never forgive those who made my son feel that way. I’ll forgive my son for what he’s done to me but I’ll never get over it. No one should ever have to bury their child.”_

-      _Linda Iero, grieving mother of Frank Iero_

 

Well I can only say that Dr Spelunker is a good writer. There was no doubt the book was going to be hard-hitting, but that was just fucking.

      I started just reading the chapter on Frank. But I don’t know, soon I was reading the piece on Constance and then I was reading the whole thing, including the technical psychological stuff and the advice. Some lines stuck in my mind and others I just didn’t understand.  

      _She had scars all over her and we never knew until we went to the funeral home that we found out_ a line from Constance’s mom. _Depression feels like a dark cloud that only gets heavier when you smile and darker when you try and make it go away. Going back I could maybe have saved that one life, but there would always be another, because like is unfair._

     My mom doesn’t send me back to school until the following Monday. In the mean time I read and then re-read the entire book. It’s so full of the word selfish. Kids that are selfish, no wonder people aren’t too into it.

     Obviously these kids were victims; Constance was sexually abused by her teacher in the fourth grade. Michael had social anxiety, paranoia, and schizophrenia. I know what happened to Frank. It makes me feel like shit. I know that that’s the wrong approach, but it’s true. All those others had a reason to be so fucked up. I, fucked myself up.

     I go to Dr Spelunker’s on Thursday. I put the book on the desk and sit down.

     “Hello Gerard. Did you read the chapter on Frank?” She smiles.

     “I read it all. It was very good.”

     “I know,” I raise my eyebrows. “I know that it is Gerard, now what did you think?”

     “Of the Frank bit or the whole thing?”

     “Did you read the whole thing?” I nod. “Well then how does it make you feel?”  
     “Selfish.”

     “I used the word eight hundred and eleven times. Elaborate?”

     “Whoa. Okay. Um… I don’t know I just feel selfish.”

     “Do you feel like killing yourself would be selfish because it would only cure your problems while creating lots for others?”

     “No.”

     “No?”

     “I feel like I don’t deserve to feel _this bad._ I’m so fucked up but all the ways I am are down to me being bad at being a human.” She’s looking at me intently now. “Uh… I am the one who made myself the way I am and that’s why people don’t treat me the way they do each other. Their religion is important and I have chosen to go against it. I wasn’t sexually abused, I don’t have schizophrenia or paranoia or anything. I’m perfectly alright. I’m A-Okay only I’ve fucked myself up and it’s selfish of me to think that I deserve to be helped or let leave when there are other people who have a reason to want to.” I take a deep breath. I probably said too much. I mean this is probably what therapists thrive on.

     “Oh, Gerard,” is all she says for a while. Then, “You can’t chose who you are. Also, you don’t need a reason to be depressed and god knows if you did you have one. Anyone can get depressed. Anyone. You could have a happy home situation and still get depressed. You could eat well and still get depressed. You could be well off and get depressed. You could have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you could have good food, and you could have good grades. You don’t need a reason to be depressed. You could have what’s deemed to be a perfect life and get depressed, that’s what’s so dangerous about depression; anyone could get it. Sure; things can spark it. Something big could happen or you could have some other big issues but that doesn’t make your depression automatically more important than anyone else’s. Depression is _not_ justifiable and that is not the reason to feel selfish.”

    

Frank jumps on me on Monday. Literally pounces. “You can’t do it, Gerard. I thought you’d done it. I thought the reason you were gone is you fucking killed yourself you big asshole. I thought you were in purgatory or off somewhere swinging from a noose, you dickhead.”

      “Oh,” I say and reach past him to get a book from my locker.

      “Okay listen this is why you can’t do it. I’ve compiled a list of valid reasons, my mom’s wording. Okay, number one; you are too good at art. The world would be lost without your comics, man. Number two; you’re friends Jack and Alex would miss you too much. Number three; everyone else in this school would be afraid to come out _ever._ From what you’ve told me there are only three not straight people in the whole school and that doesn’t make sense. Number four-”

      “Frank.”

     “No, shut the fuck up. Number four; you’re poor parents, okay. You would tear them apart. Which is pretty mean considering they made you. Number five; those assholes would be invited to your funeral, you know you don’t want them there. Number six; they’d probably play bad music at it-”

     “Frank! I’m not going to do it!”

     “Really?” he looks so fucking happy. I nod. “Fucking yes Gerard,” he launches at me again, knocking me to the floor kissing me. I just kind of lie under him kissing back, my arms sticking up; locked in place by shock.

     Frank doesn’t get off until the bell rings and I say, “I have to go to class,” into his mouth.

     When he gets off me he chatters away quickly while I get my books, “made the right decision, but I had ninety nine reasons man! Literally you could have let me get to at least thirty!”

     “Bye Frank.” It was March the third.

 

Frank often made me promise not to do it. Only twice did I come close again, both during my finals. I spent all my time studying and writing an essay to try get into college. I know I won’t get in but everyone was pushing me to try. I guess I owed it to my parents to at least try since I scared the shit out of them.

     I spent the months in fucking therapy. Dr Spelunker and Mr Corgan combined. Yea, I guess it helped, but not as much as Frank did. Everyone else is so careful around me in case they trigger me or something. My parent’s most of all but then Mikey picked up on the habit. Jack and Alex joked around but never with me. No more gay jokes, at least not when I’m   around.

     And the weirdest thing was the way everyone else started acting. Logan just completely stopped being mean. That’s not to say he started being nice but _still._ Apparently his mom was cheerleader prom queen during Frank’s time in school. She had taken the death of frank pretty personally and when she found out about me and her son from Mr Corgan she went crazy. Chase not only stopped being mean but told me he was _sorry._ I freaked out completely and nearly started crying which only added to the awkwardness.

     It’s not like everyone automatically became my friend, just everyone took it hard. No one shoves me in the halls anymore. No one jeers. No one punches me or takes my money or writes on my stuff. It’s just an uncomfortable feeling everywhere but at least I’m no longer in physical pain.

     Carla tells me what happened when I was away. Mr Corgan went full on drill sergeant therapist on the school. He gave every class a talk on mental health and if anyone needed help or knew someone who did to talk to him. Then he went to any class that he thought relevant to me and told them all to stop being assholes, basically. I don’t think that’s all he said but I didn’t pester Carla for details.

     In the months after that, I spent lunchtimes either with Mr Corgan “working through my problems” or with Frank, making out while listening to Iron Maiden or just talking.

     Now, my graduation robes are surprisingly heavy and stupidly dusty. I mean, I’m coughing randomly as plumes of dead skin and things rise. My mom starts her crying at ten when I’m showered and changed and doesn’t properly stop for the rest of the day. My dad smiles constantly and Mikey keeps making jokes and trying to lighten the mood.

      We drive to the school. We’re early enough that we actually get to park within the gates. My mom and dad and Mikey take their seats in the crowded hall. We have twenty three minutes before it officially begins.

      The other graduating students are standing around the adjoining room to the auditorium.

      I stand around there for a total of fifteen seconds before I say, “I have to do something,” to no-one in particular and run out of the room.

     Frank is sitting on the floor by the lockers looking out over the carpark. He stands up when I run down the way. “Gerard?”

     “I am going to graduate,” I gasp, out of breath from my short run.

     “I know! Go graduate!”

     “I can’t.”

     “Why?!”

     “Because this is the last time I’ll ever be in this school.”

     “We said goodbye yesterday fucking hell! You cried!”

     “I’ll cry again!”

     “Don’t be so dramatic,” he says but I can see him swelling with emotion too.

     “I’ll never see you again.”

     “Go graduate.”

     “Unless I die soon we’ll never speak again.”

     “Go graduate and get on with your life.”

     “And even if I did die whenever I’m meant to, it won’t be here, to be in your level.”

     “Fuck it Gerard, go graduate and live your life like I can’t live mine!” he starts crying. Being dead I didn’t know he still could cry. He slides down against my locker and sits on the floor, knees drawn into his chest.

     “And you know what the worst part is,” I murmur, beginning to shake now myself, “even if I do die when I’m supposed to and I do get into your level, I’ll be old. I’ll be old and you won’t recognise me and you won’t love me.”

     “Of course I will,” he spits.

     “No you won’t. I know you won’t,” I slide down to the floor next to him. “But I love you now.”

      “And I love you now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi.   
> THE END   
> Sorry if it was very feelsy, i haven't done a feely fic in a while. In fact it felt weird writing this because i'm having such lighthearted conversations at the same time :L  
> When i finish a fic it's like i've come to the end of an era... I get so overly attatched to the storyline and characters and setting and everything, it's ridiculous.   
> Anyway thank you so so SO so much for reading :) if you liked this you might like my other fics but you might not idk i can't make those kind of promises :p thanks for reading and let me know what you think!


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